My Vacation in the Desert
by plasticChevy
Summary: The Team returns to Iraq to tie up some loose ends left by Morrison and his co-conspirators, unaware that Lynch and Sosa are behind the mission. When Hannibal's plan goes awry, they have to find a way to complete the mission, get home, and get the team back in the game.
1. Part 1: Iraq

_**Author's Note:**_ I've loved the A-Team since it was first broadcast on television in the '80s and written reams of fanfic based on the original series. I also loved the movie and happily embraced the characters in their 2000s incarnation. I've tried to be true to the movie characters in this fic, though the lack of backstory and the thinness of the relationships between them made it necessary to mine the old series for details in some places. Hopefully it rings true to you movie fans, and hopefully you enjoy it.

\- Chevy

 _ **Part One: Iraq**_

Face stared over the edge of the bluff, eyes narrowed in concentration as he watched the distant, olive-drab figures moving across the tarmac below. Lifting his field glasses, he scanned the row of aircraft, picking out the most modern and heavily-armed models instinctively.

"See one you like?" he asked the man sprawled beside him.

"I want that cute little desert camo number, right by the wire."

"You mean, the one that's more rust than metal? _That_ one?"

Murdock grinned. "Yeah."

"Aww, come on, Murdock. How about the Apache with the heat-seekers? Or that black one on the left... the one that looks like it could take out an aircraft carrier?"

"This is about blending into the scenery, not blowing stuff up."

"It never hurts to be prepared."

Murdock grinned at his friend, hearing the familiar manic note in his voice that heralded a burst of violent heroics. Turning back to his study of the airfield, he murmured, "Stick to the plan, man."

"You sound just like Hannibal," Face chuckled, "except for the tendency to rhyme." He stuffed his field glasses back into their case and reached for the M5 that lay beside him. "Well, if you've got your heart set on the frump, let's go get her."

With that, he began slithering down the face of the bluff, keeping flat to the dun-colored ground where the thickening dusk and his camouflaged clothing offered some minimal protection. Murdock did not hesitate, but plunged headfirst down the incline after him. Together, the two men belly-crawled across the open space that surrounded the little airfield. To their left, a shed stood close to the razor wire barrier. They instinctively headed toward it and the meagre cover it provided.

In the shadow of this structure, they rose to a crouch and pulled wire-cutters from their belts. Face pointed to the nearest metal pin that anchored the razor wire to the ground, then flashed a familiar gesture at his teammate. Murdock nodded and moved to his left to find the next pin. It took them only a minute or two to snip the thinner wire loose from the pins and free a stretch of several feet. Face gave another signal, then carefully lifted the wire, leaving a space just barely large enough for a grown man to wriggle through without cutting his back to ribbons.

Murdock immediately dropped to the ground and crawled under the wire, catching his leather jacket only once before he rolled free of the ugly little blades. Thirty seconds later, Face had joined him inside the barrier.

The rest was routine for these veteran Rangers. They moved in complete silence, acting as if they shared the same brain, taking out the sentries with frightening efficiency. Murdock clambered into the aging OH-58 he had chosen, while Face covered him from the darkness beneath the nearby hulk of a Black Hawk. It all ran like clockwork, right up to the moment that Murdock fired up the chopper's engine.

Face was ready for it - the roaring, shattering noise that would expose their presence to the entire base - and sprinted full tilt for the OH at the first splutter of sound. He halted at the rear passenger door and turned to sweep the airfield with the muzzle of his weapon. They would come. Any second now, they would come running...

There was a flash of movement over near the control tower, and Face fired without hesitation, aiming high but making his point with devastating force. Shells ripped into the side of the tower, then shattered the windscreen on a jeep parked beside it, while three men flung themselves onto the ground and scrambled for cover. A dozen more uniformed figures spilled out of the nearest building, waving guns, and Face turned his fire on the engine of another strategically-placed jeep. It exploded in a very satisfactory manner that scattered the soldiers and brought a grin to the lieutenant's face.

Above his head, the chopper blades were picking up speed, filling the air with their comforting howl - a sound every combat veteran loved, because it meant reinforcements or rescue. The chopper lifted slightly then settled back on its skids, and Murdock bellowed above the roar of the engines, "Get in here, Face!"

Face laughed and fired another hail of bullets at the advancing soldiers. Several of them returned his fire, sending shells whizzing around him and pinging off the metal hulk at his back. Face pumped several rounds into a stack of fuel drums, igniting a gout of flame that billowed into the night sky, then stepped backward onto the skid and hooked his left hand through the door handle.

"Go, Murdock! _Go!_ "

Murdock didn't argue. He eased the stick back, lifting off as gently as he dared with the U.S. Army pouring down on them, and heard Face laughing as he emptied his magazine in a last, farewell flourish. The pilot grinned in spite of himself. Leave it to Face to turn a simple raid into a chance to play the pirate. All he needed was a yardarm to swing from and a cutlass between his teeth to finish the picture.

They were swooping low over the desert, headed for an abandoned base and refuse dump on the outskirts of Baghdad, when Face wrenched the rear door open and climbed into the chopper. He slammed the door, reducing the howl of wind and noise to bearable proportions, and slid between the front seats.

"That was fun," he gasped, as he dropped, panting and grinning, into the co-pilot's chair.

Murdock rolled his eyes and grinned back.

"D'you like her, Murdock?"

"She's a beauty."

"Good, 'cause the Army has a no-return policy on stolen choppers." He pulled the magazine from his M5 and frowned at it, as if it had somehow let him down. "I'm empty."

"That's 'cause you were playin' Errol Flynn back there, showin' off for the grunts."

Face grinned irrepressibly at him, still visibly crackling with excitement, his eyes ablaze with the joy of the game. "Too bad it was so easy! Takes half the fun out of it." He paused, sobering very slightly. "One little coil of razor wire and a few kids wandering around with pop-guns... It's like they were asking us to come in and steal something."

"The war's over, remember?" Murdock said dryly. "They're just waitin' to ship this stuff home."

"Well, here's one less hunk of metal for them to worry about."

Murdock laughed.

Face stretched luxuriously, savoring the last traces of adrenaline in his system, and said lazily. "Step on it, would ya buddy? We've still got a mission briefing with Ahmed tonight, and I'm beat."

* * *

The tiny, shabby hotel room seemed barely able to hold the men crammed into it. Hannibal and Face sat on the narrow bed, a map spread out between them, while Murdock slouched in a rickety chair to Face's right and B.A. leaned his hands on the back of the chair to peer over the pilot's shoulder. Opposite Murdock sat a fifth man, a young, handsome Arab with angular features and worried eyes. Every other inch of space in the room was filled with gear - weapons, comm packs, kit bags, and a jumble of local clothing piled on a table shoved into the corner. A single fixture on the wall above the bed cast a circle of unfiltered light on the map and threw the faces bent so intently over it into high relief.

Hannibal stared at the map for a moment, then shifted his gaze to Face. "All our intel points to Tikrit as the insurgents' home base. We have to assume that's where they'll take you."

The young Arab seated to Hannibal's right nodded agreement without lifting his eyes from the map.

"But first you have to get out of Sadr City," Hannibal continued, poking his cigar-butt at a tangle of streets on the map that clearly represented Baghdad. "I don't like you going in there alone, kid."

Face shot him a gleaming smile. "I won't be alone. Ahmed will be with me, and he knows those streets better than any of us."

Both men turned to look at the Arab, who smiled shyly and said, in a soft, diffident voice, "I know the streets, but I will have no weapon. Perhaps I could hide you in the sewer if things go badly."

"Thanks, but no thanks. I've already visited the scenic sewers of Baghdad, and I still smell them in my nightmares."

"If Ahmed says it's time to hit the sewers," Hannibal retorted, now jabbing his cigar at his lieutenant instead of the map, "you'll hit the sewers. Understand?"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it. But Sadr City isn't going to be a problem."

"How do you figure that?"

"Simple. If these guys are planning to kill me, they won't do it in the middle of Baghdad - even that part of Baghdad." He fired another high-wattage smile at Hannibal, unable to contain his sense of fun even when discussing his own potential execution. "After all, it takes time to do these things properly. What if the locals interfere? Demand their share of the fun or, worse, of the cash?"

He shook his head decisively and went on with perfect aplomb, "No, they'll wait until we're out in the desert somewhere, _then_ they'll take the money, punish the Western Infidel, and leave the pieces for the vultures."

Hannibal grinned in spite of his obvious worry. "And that doesn't bother you, I take it."

"Why should it? Outside the city, I've got you and Bosco tracking me on the ground, Murdock in the air, and Ahmed covering my sixes. What could go wrong?"

"With you? I shudder to think."

B.A. grunted with laughter and clouted Face on the shoulder, nearly sending him sprawling over the bed. "You'll mess it up somehow, Face. You always do."

"And you'll come blasting in to save my sorry hide, Bosco, like you always do."

"Okay," Hannibal conceded, a smile still twitching his lips as he spoke, "let's say Face is right and nothing happens until they're out of Baghdad. Run it down from there. Murdock?"

"I'm sitting four klicks north of the city limits, waiting till I see Face's signal."

"Where'd you put the transmitter, B.A.?"

"In the money belt," the corporal grunted. "I figure, no matter where they leave Faceman, that money belt'll end up with Al Fayed."

Ignoring Face's snort of amused disgust, Hannibal said, "Good call. And the body mic?"

"In his turban."

"Isn't that kinda dangerous?" Murdock asked. "Seems like it oughta be somewhere more protected."

"I can't wear it in my clothes," Face pointed out, "or they'll find it when they search me. And if I hide it too well, you won't be able to hear anything."

"I guess..."

"Have a little faith, Murdock," Hannibal chided.

"Huh. You're the one who's always riding Face about being too reckless."

"Have a little faith in B.A.'s skill, if not in Face's caution."

"Oh, that's nice!" Face interjected. "First I'm less important than a pile of euros, now I can't be trusted to look after myself on the mission! Why don't you just send B.A. in on point, instead of me?"

"Because he won't pass for a French journalist," Hannibal retorted. "And no one will buy him as a non-violent, idealistic crusader."

"I'll read 'em some Gandhi," the corporal said, with a sly grin at his teammate. "That'll sell my cover."

"Yeah, right up until you rip their arms off," Murdock offered.

Hannibal knew the signs that his boys were about to launch into an endless, spiraling game of baiting each other, and he decided it was time to get the briefing back on track. He silenced Murdock with a look and turned his attention to Ahmed.

"We're keeping you clean, son, just in case things go sour. If they don't find any electronics or weapons on you, they may believe that you thought Face was a harmless journalist. It could save your life."

"I understand," Ahmed murmured, but his expression was tense and his eyes frightened.

"You can still pull out."

"I'm Lt. Peck's translator, am I not? If I don't go with him..."

"Face speaks fluent Arabic."

"Yes, but the insurgents do not know this."

"I can tell them," Face assured him, "at the rendezvous. I can talk you out of going, if that's what you want."

Ahmed smiled convulsively. "I want to live through tomorrow. I want to live to be an old, old man. But I promised the Colonel to help, and I will do what I promised. You cannot go with these men alone, Lieutenant. They are the worst kind of people, brutal and without conscience. You do not know..."

"I do. I've met their kind before." Face clasped his arm for a moment in a gesture of comradeship and added, quietly, "But I'm grateful for the back-up."

"You're a good man, Ahmed." Hannibal switched gears instantly again, focusing his piercing gaze on his other two teammates. "Murdock, you're their primary support. B.A. and I will keep as close as possible, but we can't be visible to the truck, and on such flat ground, that means a few miles back. You stay within range of the tracking signal and mic. And I'd say no more than three minutes' flight time from Face's position."

"Got it. I play leap-frog with Face."

"B.A., we'll use Murdock as our eyes and ears. We shadow the target until it reaches Tikrit. Then we use the local traffic as cover and move in close. Murdock'll have to ditch the chopper outside of town."

"We got it, Boss Man. Ain't gonna be no trouble."

"As long as Face remembers his cover," Hannibal said, his eyes narrowing as they fastened on his lieutenant.

Face, who had been half listening and staring distantly at the map, caught the warning note in his commander's voice and looked up, startled out of his reverie. "What?"

"Your cover, kid."

"What about it?"

"Run it down for me."

Face sighed theatrically and recited, "I'm a French journalist on a crusade to expose corruption in the American Military Machine. I've got an interview lined up with this Al Fayed and his "Fists of Righteousness" loonies to get any dirt they have on American abuses and dirty business deals, and I'm prepared to pay handsomely for it." He looked challengingly at Hannibal. "Did I miss anything?"

"The key here is that you're a journalist, kid, _not_ a soldier. You're an idealist who thinks his moral rectitude will protect him from all the Bad Things in this world."

"In other words, you're a pussy," B.A. informed him blandly.

Face rolled his eyes. "Thank you, I hadn't figure that out for myself." Cutting a sidelong glance at his commander, he added, tauntingly, "Who's the World Class conman here, anyway, Hannibal? Who came up with the cover in the first place? Who taught _you_ how to run a scam? I know how to play a part and how to keep my cool, but if you're so sure I'll blow it, maybe you better send Bosco after all."

"I know you won't blow it, kid," Hannibal said quietly. "I just want you to understand how serious this is."

For the first time, Face looked genuinely annoyed. "Oh, that's rich! Remember who you're talking to, here, Hannibal! I'm the guy you always send in first to stir up the hornet's nest. I've met these bastards up close and personal more times than you can count, and I've got the scars to prove it! So don't tell me how to handle them, and don't pretend I can't take care of myself!"

"Fair enough. But I want you to remember this conversation when you get bored and decide that you'd rather bait the bad guys, or fight them, or seduce their women."

Face's expression changed instantly from hostile to hopeful. "Women?"

Murdock gave a snort of laughter and B.A. groaned. Hannibal just lifted an eyebrow at his lieutenant.

"Okay fine, no women," Face groused.

"Even if there's a pretty one without too many grenades on her belt," Murdock piped in, earning him a glare from Hannibal and a laugh from Face.

"Out!" Hannibal ordered. "All of you out! Get some sleep. We have to be up at daybreak. And Face..."

"I know, I know. No women."

* * *

Captain Sosa paused in the doorway to scan the room with cynical eyes. Every building in the Green Zone admin block was identical – a prefab brick of ugliness – and every room within them was the same utilitarian space, painted a nauseating dirty-beige, with walls too thin to keep Top Secret conversations even marginally private. This one was no different. It was the men working in this room who set it apart. They all wore unmarked fatigues and forage caps in an attempt to blend in with their surroundings, but they stood out like hula dancers among the real soldiers. Everyone knew they were spooks. If you scratched the desert camo on their bodies, you'd find a black suit and mirrored sunglasses underneath.

Smirking to herself at this thought, Sosa stepped through the door and made for the big desk at the back of the room. Agent Lynch – the second of that name she'd known personally – lifted his head and followed her approach with expressionless eyes. She couldn't tell with this one whether he lusted after her, loathed her, or held her in amused contempt. His face never cracked. She wasn't even sure whether he'd included her in this operation because he respected her abilities or because he wanted to use her connections, but in the end his motives didn't matter. She was where she wanted to be, thanks to Lynch.

Schooling her own features into bland impassibility, she stopped in front of his desk.

"This just came in from F.O.B. Raptor." She handed him a single sheet of paper but did not wait for him to read it. "Two men stole a decommissioned chopper from the Raptor airfield, and from the description, one was definitely Peck. The other flew the chopper, so it must have been Murdock. They were gone before personnel in the tower figured out what was happening, so they weren't able to track it."

"This _is_ the Army we're talking about," Lynch said, sourly, as he scanned the short document. "Harris! Tap into the files at Raptor and get me a proper report! Pitt, find out who's in command out there."

Sosa watched the two eager young agents hop to their assignments, while Lynch continued to stare at the scrap of paper he held. "I take it you're pleased with this news."

This was a shot very much in the dark, since Lynch's expression had not changed in the slightest, but it was shrewdly aimed all the same. She may not know what he was thinking at any given moment, but she knew what his larger goals were, and this move by the A-Team could only mean one thing.

"Hm. Smith needs air support."

"They've made contact."

"About damned time. I was beginning to think Smith was losing his edge."

Sosa snorted derisively. "Fat chance."

"Agent Lynch?" one of the flunkies called, "I've got an ID on that chopper."

"Is it still wearing its numbers?"

"Yeah, and the radio is still tagged. If they use it, we'll know about it."

"They won't. Smith knows protocol better than we do and he'll know exactly how visible he is in that bird."

"Then why go for a U.S. Military chopper?" Sosa asked.

Lynch shrugged. "It's easy to get, it blends into the scenery, and his pilot can fly it in his sleep."

"Fly it where?"

"When we find the chopper, we'll know."

"What if we can't find the chopper?"

"Then your precious A-Team will be flying into a shit storm with no back-up."

"Smith will have planned for that. As far as he's concerned, he and his Team are on their own, so he'll build an escape hatch into his plan."

"You have a lot of confidence in him."

"I do. If he takes those men into any kind of storm, he'll bring them out again."

"Let's hope so, because if he doesn't, your pretty-boy ex could wind up as buzzard chow."

Sosa had long practice in not reacting to such digs. She merely smiled and raised her eyebrows at her would-be tormentor, completely unfazed by both his insinuations and his threats. She might care that Face was once again flirting with disaster – she might care very much – but she'd be damned if she let a cold-blooded bastard like Lynch see it.

"I'm not the one who bet his reputation that he could clean up this mess. It was your agent who conspired with Morrison, Pike and a group of Iraqi insurgents to steal billions of dollars. And it was your agent who leaked Government secrets to those same insurgents to win their trust."

"None of this is news to me, Captain," Lynch said dryly.

She leaned forward, placing her hands on his desk and bringing her face within a few inches of his. "Then it's not news to you that the A-Team is your best chance of finding and eliminating those insurgents before they use – or sell – what they know."

"That's why I leaked the information about Morrison to set them on the trail."

"Then you have a vested interest in the A-Team's success."

He nodded without letting his gaze shift from hers, and a hint of a smile twitched one side of his mouth. "Granted. But I wasn't the one sticking my tongue down Peck's throat on the L.A. docks."

Sosa backed off slightly to eye Lynch from a more circumspect distance. She toyed with the idea of making a crack about the agent's sexuality but decided, just in time, that discretion was the better part of valor and bit her tongue. "What's your point?"

"Simply that we both have a… _vested interest_ in the success of this particular mission. So I suggest that we stop trying to skewer each other – verbally or otherwise – and work together."

"I thought we were."

The infinitesimal smile widened a bit. "You drop the remarks about Lynches past and I'll refrain from comment on your taste in boy-toys. And both of us will do our best to keep the A-Team alive. Agreed?"

Sosa studied his face intently, hoping for one tiny glimpse of what was truly simmering in his reptilian brain, and sighed in defeat. "Agreed."

* * *

"Hey," Murdock said.

The dark head in front of him, silhouetted against the star-strewn sky, turned and Face's voice answered him. "Hey, Murdock."

The pilot held up two bottles of beer, offering one to his teammate. "I found some of the good stuff."

"Cheers." Face took a bottle from his hand and raised it in a brief salute. Then he downed a third of it in one swallow. Turning back to prop his elbows on the battered cinderblock wall that divided their patch of littered ground from another identical one, he resumed his study of the night.

Murdock joined him, assuming the same posture and gazing out at the ragged city skyline.

Face took another slug of beer and tilted his head up, as if savoring the hot wind on his face. "I never thought I'd say this, but I actually missed this place."

"Hm."

"You don't believe me?"

"I do. I'm just wonderin'... what was it you missed? The heat? The smell? Or the locals carrying IEDs?"

Face laughed softly. "The feeling that we belong. That we have a job to do, and it matters."

"I get that." Murdock sipped his own beer thoughtfully. "Can you believe that Morrison really sold military secrets to these bastards?"

"Hannibal believes it. And with what we already _know_ Morrison did... well it's not much of a stretch."

"I dunno. It's one thing to steal billions of dollars. It's another thing to endanger our country - a country he fought for all his adult life."

"And betrayed when it didn't give him what he thought he deserved. He sold us down the river fast enough, Murdock, and we were his men."

"Hmm. He let Hannibal go to prison."

"Right. If he'd do that to the colonel, then I guess he'd do pretty much anything."

They fell quiet again, both looking out at the city and turning over their private thoughts, until Murdock asked, "You worried about tomorrow?"

"Nah."

"Then what're you doin' out here alone?"

"Thinking."

"'Bout what?"

"My first mission with Hannibal." Face took another slug of beer and smiled dreamily at the stars over his head. "He sent me to North Africa. Tangier. I could speak French and blend in with the Europeans in the city, so I got point. My assignment was to locate the target and lead in the rest of the squad."

"What'd you do, Face?" the pilot demanded in a tone that said he already knew the answer.

Face just laughed.

"Was it a woman?"

"Nope. But I still managed to end up in the harbor with a lead weight strapped to my feet."

"Hannibal pulled you out."

"Doesn't he always? God bless Hannibal Smith!" He raised his beer bottle in a solemn toast, then drained it and tossed it into the rubbish heap on the far side of the wall.

Murdock shook his head in disbelief. "You and the colonel have been doin' this dance for a long time. Don't you ever get tired of it?"

The look Face turned on him was blank and disbelieving. "What else would I do?"

"I dunno... something that doesn't get you half-killed every time you go to work in the morning."

Face dismissed that with a disdainful gesture. "I haven't died yet."

"That's 'cause Hannibal always comes."

"And he always will, so what's the problem?"

Turning sideways to prop his hip against the wall and confront his teammate squarely, Murdock demanded, "You know you're my best friend, right?"

Face blinked at him, taken off guard by his change of tone. "Of course I do."

"And you know I'd go completely off the rails - for real, I mean - if something happened to you that we couldn't fix?"

"Murdock..."

"No, just listen to me for once. You're a crazy man, Face. People call me crazy, but that's 'cause they don't know you."

"What about Bosco? He knows both of us and he..."

Murdock ignored his interruption and went on earnestly, "Your brand of crazy gets you into serious trouble. So far, we've always shown up in time to pull you out of the shit, but what if we don't this time?"

"You will. I have complete faith in you."

"I wish you didn't."

Face cocked his head, frowning in confusion at his friend's words. "Why?"

"'Cause maybe then you'd be more careful."

When Face said nothing but continued to frown, Murdock changed tactics. Letting a note of pleading creep into his voice, he said, "Look, buddy, I'm just askin' you, this once, for me, be extra careful tomorrow. Stick to the plan. Don't improvise, don't get cocky or cute, and for Christ's sake, Face, don't start thinkin' you can take down these bastards alone!"

"I won't. Or I will. Whichever will make you happy," Face said placatingly.

"Seein' you climb outta that truck in Tikrit, with all your limbs still attached will make me happy."

An affectionate smile softened Face's features, and he reached over to punch Murdock lightly on the shoulder. "Just for you, buddy."

"Thanks."

The smile widened into a baiting grin. "But I'm still gonna rely on you to pull me out of the shit."

"It's what I live for, baby." Murdock smiled crookedly at his friend, then drained his beer bottle in a gesture of finality. "Come on, let's get some sleep. We got an early start tomorrow."

"Yeah."

Together, the two men crunched over the gravelly, trash-strewn ground and slipped into the tiny hotel.

* * *

Face sat in the rattling, jolting SUV, jammed in tightly between two Arabs, with three more crowded into the seat in front of him, speeding down a gravel and dirt road to nowhere. It was stiflingly hot, even for the Iraqi desert, and the men squashed up against him seemed to be sucking up all the available oxygen. He squirmed around to find a more comfortable position between his sweaty companions, trying to avoid the rifle butt jammed into his ribs, but only received an elbow to the head for his trouble.

"Watch where you put your hands, pretty whore," the man on his right said in passable French.

The one on the other side said something extremely rude in Arabic, assuming that Face could not understand him, and laughed. Face subsided into his place, scowling in pretended outrage at the first insult and ignoring the second much more potent one.

The fact that Face spoke fluent Arabic had so far escaped his escort, as had the fact that he was far more lethal – even unarmed and alone – than any of these desert rats slung about with guns and grenades. This suited the lieutenant just fine. Years of experience had taught him that a man who called him a "pretty whore", in any language, didn't consider him a threat. And a man who didn't consider him a threat was unlikely to put a bullet in his head before he had a chance to fight back.

The truck hit a large pothole, bouncing him against the ruder of his two companions and earning him another muttered crack about his sexual practices. He pretended not to understand, smiled and apologized in French. Then he shot a swift glance over his shoulder at the man crammed into the cargo space behind him.

Ahmed looked faintly green beneath the brown of his skin, as if sitting sideways in a truck careening through the Iraqi desert didn't quite agree with his digestion. The lieutenant shot him a wide, beguiling grin that sent a spasm over his dark features. It might have been an answering smile. On the other hand, it might have been a grimace of pain. It was hard to tell under the circumstances.

Face trusted Ahmed implicitly and recognized his importance to the mission, but he was beginning to wish that he'd left him in Sadr City instead of carting him along on this lunatic mission. Not only was the poor man about to lose his lunch, but his presence had an inhibiting effect on the other Arabs in the truck. They knew Ahmed understood them and wouldn't speak freely in front of him, so Face heard nothing more interesting than bawdy stories and insults.

The truck hit another pothole and lurched perilously onto two wheels. Ahmed groaned, and Face reached back to slap him on the shoulder.

" _Ça va?_ " he asked, sympathetically.

Ahmed just rubbed his eyes with a shaking hand and shot Face a pleading look.

Turning to the man seated on his right, Face offered his most appealing smile and said, in perfect, idiomatic French, "How much farther are we going? My friend, here, is feeling pretty sick."

The man grinned, his teeth a startlingly white slash in his dark face, and remarked to his comrades in Arabic, "The faggot wants to know how much farther we're going."

This produced a round of laughter that made Face distinctly uneasy. He listened to his escort cracking rude jokes, a look of frowning confusion on his features, until he heard Ahmed groan again. Then he nudged the French speaker and asked more insistently, "How far?"

"Close your mouth before I shove something in it."

Face subsided into disgruntled silence, radiating wounded dignity, and turned his attention to figuring out exactly where they were headed. He could see a swath of the vast, dun-colored landscape between the heads of the men in the front seat. A line of low, rocky hills rose in the distance, the only notable feature in any direction. Face didn't recognize them, so he couldn't use them as a reference point, and he had long since lost any sense of direction. He only knew that they had left Baghdad on the highway that ran north, toward Tikrit, but had left it an hour ago. They might still be making for Tikrit, but how could he be sure? And if not Tikrit, then where?

The situation was remarkably frustrating. The adrenaline rush of his first meeting with the insurgents had long since faded. Now he was simply uncomfortable and bored. On any other mission, Face would have chosen this time to shake things up, throw a little kink into Hannibal's plan just to see what blew up as a result, but this was no ordinary mission and he had promised to behave. He couldn't break his word to Murdock, so he had to sit quietly in the truck and play the Idealistic French Pussy, no matter how badly he itched for a little action.

As he gazed dully at the emptiness around him, thoroughly regretting his promise, he caught himself wondering how Murdock could possibly follow him in his stolen chopper, when the desert offered no cover for anything bigger than a good-sized scorpion. Did he, in fact, have any back-up? Was Murdock listening to his comm signal? Or had he been forced so far out of range that Face and Ahmed were truly alone?

He was still pondering this question when the road swung to the right and the truck took an abrupt left turn, off of the minimal road surface. Bouncing viciously over rocks and ridges, it dove down into the bottom of a deep wadi and came to a halt in a cloud of dust.

Slumped in the pilot's couch of the stolen chopper, Murdock gazed idly at the GPS screen, watching the little green blip that marked Face's position and whistling a cheerful tune between his teeth. The headset fastened to his right ear was filled with chatter in Arabic, with an occasional interruption in French from Faceman. He understood both languages in a rudimentary way but couldn't catch more than a word or two of the conversation in the truck. This didn't worry him much. Face had a series of code words he could use if he needed help from his team, and Murdock would recognize any of those no matter how much noise surrounded them.

Another blip on the GPS screen marked Hannibal and B.A.'s position. Murdock watched it cruising along at a steady speed, holding a circumspect distance from the leading blip that was Face, and smiled to himself. Everything was going exactly as planned. Face was behaving himself. And in another hour, they'd be in Al Fayed's headquarters with those all-important documents. It seemed as though his fears were unfounded - for once.

When the GPS blip stopped moving, Murdock left off his whistling and took a moment to listen more closely to the voices in his ear. He still heard nothing but Arabic, but the speakers sounded different. Excited. Angry. Something was definitely up. His feeling of satisfaction evaporated, as all his warning antennae started humming.

He was frowning as he reached for the high-powered walkie-talkie on the seat beside him and hit the call switch. "Tweetie Bird to Sylvester. Come in Sylvester."

Hannibal's voice came crackling over the line almost instantly. "Go ahead, Tweetie."

"I think we got a situation, Boss."

"Out! Get out!" The order came from a man in the front seat whom Face had pegged as the leader of this squad. His name was Omar, and his men were clearly afraid of him.

The men on either side of him grabbed Face by the arms and began hauling him bodily out the door. Sticking to his cover, he reacted with mingled outrage and fear, demanding, "What is this? Take your hands off me!"

"Get them out!" Omar shouted.

Dragged and shoved by turns, Face tumbled out of the truck, staggering to keep his balance. One of his guards shoved him hard in the back, just as another kicked his feet out from under him, and he sprawled in the dirt, swearing in French. A knee landed heavily on his back, pinning him down.

"Find the money. Where's the other one?"

Face craned his neck to peer around him and saw Omar just a few feet away. The insurgent commander carried a pistol in one hand and a huge blade that looked like an old-fashioned bayonet in the other. He had more blades, an automatic weapon and a bandolier hung with ammo draped about his person, and even in his filthy, patched-up desert gear, he looked thoroughly dangerous.

Omar watched impassively, his dark face hard with contempt, as Ahmed was shoved and slapped forward. The young Arab fell awkwardly to his knees in front of Omar, visibly shaking with fear but still trying to play his part. "This is outrageous. Why have we stopped?"

"Because I ordered it," Omar snarled. Turning on one of his men, he added, "I told you to find that money!"

Hands grabbed Face and dragged him up to his knees. Then they began tearing at his clothing. The man directly in front of him leveled a rifle to point between his eyes. Face pretended to stare at it in paralytic terror while his mind raced, looking for a clue as to how to salvage the situation.

The search quickly revealed the money belt Face wore, and one of the men jerked it free. Ahmed tried again, mustering his courage to protest.

"That money is for Al Fayad! We came at his invitation, with a donation to his cause..."

"Silence!" Omar snapped, striking Ahmed a backhanded blow that sent blood spurting down his chin. Pointing his bayonet at Face, he ordered, "Search him."

Face tried to twist away from his guards' grabbing hands, still playing his helpless journalist role, until the one with the rifle decided to join in the fun. Stepping close, he jabbed at Face with the barrel, forcing his chin up until their eyes met. It was the man who had made such foul jokes in the truck, and from the smile he now wore, Face knew that things were about to get ugly. Another flick of the rifle snagged his turban and tossed it a few feet away to lie crumpled in the dirt.

In that split second, Face decided it was time to improvise. He feinted sharply to one side with his torso, throwing off the balance of the man frisking him, then he grabbed the barrel of the rifle and drove the butt into the grinning man's face with brutal force. The man let go of the weapon and howled in pain. For a miraculous moment, none of the insurgents reacted, and Face found himself on his feet with a rifle in his hands. In the next moment, two men slammed into him with fists and feet flying.

"Don't shoot that one, yet!" Omar shouted. "I want him alive!"

Face leapt into battle with a clear, hot, unholy joy filling him. This is what he'd been trained to do, what he did better than anyone else on the planet, and finally he was free to do it. To fight. To kill, if necessary. To hold evil at bay until the team showed up to save him. He knew, even as his hand first fastened on the rifle barrel, that he had crossed a line he could not uncross. He had broken his word and sent Hannibal's beautiful plan up in flames. Some small part of him was sorry, especially for breaking a promise to Murdock, but most of him was simply, gloriously happy to be free of restraint at last.

The insurgents didn't stand a chance. Face had reduced two of them to huddled piles of rags, even after one had relieved him of his weapon, and was about to disable the third when he was brought up short by a single, shattering pistol shot. He spun around, adrenaline pumping through him and making his heart race, to see Omar standing over Ahmed's body. The young Arab lay sprawled in the dust, a single bullet hole in the center of his forehead and a gory mess of blood, brain matter and bone fragments splashed across the ground behind his head.

Omar turned cold eyes on Face. They stared at each other for a moment, then the Iraqi shifted his pistol to point at his prisoner and said, in perfect English, "Now you will tell me the truth."

A blow from a rifle butt caught Face in the back of the head and the ground came up to meet him as he slammed, face first, into the blood-stained dirt. He lay there, stunned as much by Omar's words as by the force of his fall, struggling to breathe.

"Turn him over."

His guards, now bloodied and wary of their prisoner, heaved him onto his back. One of them whipped a wire garrote around his neck and cinched it painfully tight as a warning, while the other two sat on his legs.

The insurgent leader strode up to him and straddled his body, caressing his bayonet obscenely. Staring up into those feral brown eyes, Face knew that he was dead. They had blown his cover, taken his money and killed his friend. In another thirty seconds, his body parts would be spread across the desert with Ahmed's brains. He could think of precisely nothing to say.

"Who sent you to kill our leader?" Omar demanded in English. "How did you find us?"

Face gave it one, last, desperate try and answered him in French. "I don't understand. What do you want?"

"Speak English, you lying shit!" Omar howled. In the same instant, he stomped his booted foot down on Face's right wrist and drove the bayonet downward with all his strength, through the palm of Face's hand.

Deeper and deeper it sank. Bones crunched. Tendons split. Every nerve in his body seemed to explode with pain. And Face screamed in pure, heart-stopping agony.

There was the sound of laughter and a now-familiar voice hissing, "Tell me what I want to know!" Then another blade bit into him, another hideous crunch filled his ears as cold steel sank into his shoulder and drove through to the earth beneath, another explosion of pain sent him spinning out of rationality and into a place of black, mindless panic.

This time, he screamed a name. " _Murdock!_ "

The insurgents broke off their laughter and looked at each other in consternation. Face distantly heard them jabbering questions at each other and Omar demanding to know who he was talking to, but Face ignored them. He had fastened onto his one hope of rescue, his one solid point in the shifting nightmare, and he called again, desperately.

"Murdock! _Murdock!_ "

"Shut him up!" the leader snarled.

" _Murdock!_ "

A rifle butt slammed into his left temple, rocking his head to one side and stunning him with its force. He fell still for a moment, staring blankly at the figures grouped around him, then mouthed the one word he was still capable of speaking. _Murdock_.

Another, more vicious blow struck his temple, smashing bone and tissue, sending blood spurting from his left eye. Mercifully, Face did not feel it. His wide, blue gaze had already gone blank, his face empty and his mind black.

The gunshot went through Murdock's body like an electric shock. A handful of seconds later he heard Face's voice, telling him that his teammate was alive, but the fear in it did nothing to reassure him. He began slapping switches, swearing at the chopper and shouting frantically at Hannibal, growing more hysterical by the second. Everything was noise and panic - Hannibal's demands for information, the whine of rotors spinning up to speed, Murdock's own attempts to coax and threaten the chopper into instant flight. But none of this could drown out the dreadful sound of Face screaming his name, over and over again, desperately, mindlessly, each cry a physical blow that struck Murdock with terrible force.

Then, as suddenly as they had started, the screams stopped.

"No! _Noooo!_ " Murdock wailed, hauling back on the chopper's control stick until the poor old bird howled in sympathetic distress. "Don't do it, Face! Don't do it!" The skids reluctantly left the sand, and Murdock slammed the stick forward, sending the chopper skimming across the desert at full speed.

The voices coming through the headset were all unfamiliar now. They sounded afraid, and one was barking orders. Finally, in a burst of static, the microphone went dead.

"They found his mic!" Murdock cried, hoping Hannibal could hear him over the din made by an old chopper being pushed beyond its limits. "I've lost his signal!"

"Go, Murdock! Get there as fast as you can, but _be careful!_ We don't know what we'll find out there!"

 _I know_ , Murdock thought, hearing Face's cries again and the deadly silence that followed, but all he said to Hannibal was, "Understood. Over and out."

Murdock saw the bodies lying in the dry riverbed as he came in over the wadi. There was no truck in sight and no sign of life. Just two figures sprawled in the dun-colored dirt, unmoving.

He landed at the edge of the gully and bounded out of his seat before the rotors had begun to slow. Pausing only long enough to wrench the first aid kit from its mounting on the bulkhead and grab a weapon, he jumped down from the cockpit and ran for the wadi, keeping low to avoid the whirring blades. The bank was too steep to climb, so he slid down it on the seat of his pants and landed at the bottom in a cloud of thick dust.

He reached Ahmed first and barely broke stride as he passed. One glance at the gaping hole in the young man's forehead told Murdock everything that mattered. Shaking in rage and fear, he sprinted over to the second body.

Face lay on his back, an enormous blade driven through his right shoulder, literally nailing him to the ground. Another blade pinned his right hand the same way, and blood soaked steadily into the pale dirt beneath him. His head was turned sharply to the side, and his familiar blue eyes seemed to watch Murdock intently, but the eyes were empty, the lashes motionless, and the entire left side of his face masked in blood. At the sight of the hideous, sunken wound behind his left eye, Murdock uttered a dreadful animal cry of pain and dropped to his knees beside his friend's body.

For a long moment, he could think of nothing to say, nothing to do. He could only kneel in a spreading pool of blood, feeling as if the blade rammed through Face's shoulder had just torn out his own guts as well and left him to die, with agonizing slowness, beside his friend. Then he saw, through a haze of pain, Face's chest rise in a slow, shallow breath, and suddenly, his own brain seemed to come back to life again. At the same moment, the grief that had frozen at his certainty of his friend's death now thawed, and tears began streaming, unchecked, down his cheeks.

Resting one hand lightly on the injured man's head, he bent close to the battered, gore-streaked face and said in a fierce whisper, "You gotta stay with me, Face... talk to me... Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus, Face, you gotta help me!"

A thick, gory, crimson tear slipped from Face's left eye and painted a bright track down his cheek in macabre imitation of Murdock's grief, drawing a curse and a sob from his friend. "Wake up and help me, damn you!"

Grabbing the hilt of the nearest bayonet, Murdock struggled to pull it free of the ground. It refused to budge, so he shifted his grip and tensed for another assault. After three or four attempts, he gave up, afraid that he'd only tear the wound in Face's shoulder wider if he kept this up. Instead, he turned his attention to the hideous wound on the other man's temple and the blood painting his face.

The first aid kit contained rolls of gauze and Murdock's canteen provided clean water. Positioning himself so that his body blocked the worst of the sun from falling on his injured friend, he began carefully cleaning around the wound to expose its full extent. What he saw darkened his expression and brought bile up in his throat. Clenching his teeth, he continued to wipe away the blood and gore from the crushed flesh and shattered bone behind Face's left eye.

The roar of an engine announced that Hannibal and B.A. had arrived, but Murdock did not turn to acknowledge them. He could not bear to see their faces when they realized what had happened. Their voices poured over him, full of horror and disbelief, without touching him, until he heard Bosco say, "Gimme some room, Crazy Man."

He looked up to see the big Corporal crouching over the bayonet that pierced Face's shoulder, preparing to wrench it free.

Murdock scooted around to kneel above Face's head, even as Hannibal called sharply, "No, the other one first!"

"He's bleedin' out, man."

"I know, but we have to free his hand before we can bandage that shoulder wound. The hand first, B.A. Murdock, throw me that field dressing."

Clicking into his accustomed role of soldier and unofficial medic, Murdock threw off his mental paralysis and moved to help Hannibal. Together, they braced Face's arm while B.A. drew out the bayonet, then they strapped a dressing tightly over the wound without allowing themselves to see the appalling damage done to the hand.

It took B.A. three tries to get the other blade out, sunk as it was through so many layers of dirt, flesh, bone and muscle, but it came free at last. Murdock lifted Face's torso gently in his arms so that Hannibal could reach the exit wound on his back, carefully cradling the wounded man's head against his shoulder to protect it and murmuring quietly to him in a useless effort at comfort. Face could not hear, but Murdock could not see him in this dreadful condition without trying to reach him and reassure him, even if he knew it was pointless.

Hannibal tied down the last bandage and lifted bleak eyes to his teammates. "Get him in the chopper, B.A. I'll take care of Ahmed."

"What're you gonna do?" B.A. asked, his voice rough with distress. "The chopper only holds four people."

"We don't have time to bury him. I'll put him in the jeep, under a tarp to slow down the scavengers. Maybe we can get back here to..."

He broke off, and both men looked away, knowing they would not be back to retrieve the body. Ahmed had died trying to help them, and now they must abandon him. It wasn't fair. It wasn't right for Rangers to leave their dead. But in that moment, the dead mattered less to Hannibal than the living.

"Move, Corporal," he said, in a gentle voice that belied the command in his words.

B.A. nodded once, rose to his feet, and stooped to lift Face's body from Murdock's arms. Together, the two men climbed the steep slope of the wadi and crossed to the chopper, handling their fragile burden as carefully as possible. The chopper's cabin was designed to hold four men, all seated upright, and it took them a few minutes to get Face into the small space. Finally they managed it, with B.A. in one seat, supporting Face's head and shoulders so that his feet could rest on the other seat.

By the time Murdock closed the rear door and climbed behind the controls, Hannibal was already sitting beside him.

"Get us in the air, Captain."

"Where are we going?" Murdock asked, as he fired up the engines.

"Baghdad."

Murdock twisted around to exchange a startled look with B.A., but neither man ventured a protest. This was not the time to argue with their commanding officer. It was the time for trust – for their own sakes as much as Face's.

"Right, Boss."

In another minute, they were soaring above the wadi, the jeep with its forlorn cargo dropping away beneath them, and Murdock heeled the chopper over on its side, making for Baghdad.

* * *

Captain Sosa stared at the video feed playing on Lynch's computer screen and shook her head in disbelief. "What do they think they're doing? Has Smith lost his mind?"

"Not if he's headed where I think he is."

From the desk across the room, a junior agent called, his voice cracking with strain, "Sir, we've picked up a radio signal from the chopper! It's broadcasting on the emergency frequency reserved for American and Iraqi military!"

"Which Smith would know," Lynch interjected dryly.

"They're requesting clearance to land on the roof of Saddam University Hospital."

Sosa looked as if someone had punched her in the stomach, and the glare she fixed on Lynch was distinctly hostile. "Something went wrong with the mission. It must be bad, for Smith to risk flying straight into Baghdad in a stolen chopper!"

"Obviously he needs medical care in a hurry. What I want to know is, why that hospital?"

"Does it _matter_?" she demanded, her rage at his cavalier attitude mounting with every second.

"It does to me. If we're going to maintain control of this mission, we need to stay a step ahead of Smith and his team. That means, we understand every move he makes." Turning to another underling, he said, "Harris, get me Smith's full dossier from his tours in Iraq. I want the names of all his known contacts, cross-matched against the staff of Saddam University Hospital. And I want it yesterday."

"What about the chopper, Sir?" the first agent asked.

"Contact all the necessary authorities – Iraqi and U.S. military, local civilian, whoever might make trouble for us – and tell them to let the chopper land. I want the A-Team safely in that hospital, where we can keep them under surveillance."

"Of course, you don't care whether they're alive or dead," Sosa interjected acidly.

"On the contrary, I care very much, but that's not under my immediate control. The best I can do is make sure they reach the hospital as quickly as possible."

She smirked humorlessly at him, then dropped her eyes to the video feed once more. "You're a real humanitarian, Lynch."

"I've got it, Sir!" Agent Harris called. "There's a doctor who's a known associate of Smith and the A-Team. A surgeon. He patched up Smith's boys more than once when they were injured on missions, and Smith used his influence to get him a position at SUH."

"Give me a name."

"Doctor Hadi Sajahdi."

Lynch smirked in triumph. "That's our man. Let's go, Sosa."

* * *

Murdock watched Hannibal prowling the wide spot in the corridor that passed as a waiting room with tired, strangely sane eyes. "Y'know," he said, as the colonel's well-worn path brought him within range of his voice, "pacing like that isn't gonna help Face. And it's gonna drive me nuts, if you keep it up."

"You're already nuts, fool," B.A. remarked, without lifting his eyes from the book in his hands.

Hannibal smiled bleakly and dropped into the nearest chair. "I can't seem to hold still. How long has it been?"

Murdock looked at the clock that hung on the opposite wall then checked it against his watch. "Four hours."

B.A. closed his book and gave Hannibal a long, frowning look. "You worried about somethin', Boss Man?"

"You mean, besides what's happing to Face in there?" He nodded toward the closed doors to the surgery wing.

"Yeah. Besides that."

Another small, grim smile lifted the corner of Hannibal's mouth – a smile that did not touch his eyes and only seemed to darken the shadows in his face. "I'm wondering how soon the Military Police will get here."

"What you talkin' about, man?" B.A. demanded. "Doc Hadi's our friend. He won't turn us in."

"He doesn't have to. We flew right through the middle of Baghdad in a stolen Army chopper. We might as well have called up the D.O.D. and invited them to come arrest us."

"Oh, jeez," Murdock groaned.

"Then why'd they let us land?" B.A. asked.

"I don't know, and that's what has me worried. We should be in a military prison right now, or blown to bits by a heat-seeking missile, but someone let us in. Someone told the military and civilian authorities to let us land. And that someone knows exactly where to find us when he wants us."

Murdock groaned again and scrubbed his hands over his face, as if trying to erase Hannibal's words. "This is bad. Really bad."

"What're we gonna do?"

Hannibal shrugged. "What can we do except wait?"

"Sitting ducks," Murdock said, miserably.

As if on cue, the elevator at the far end of the hallway chimed. The A-Team watched with eyes numbed by exhaustion as two people stepped out of the elevator and started down the corridor toward them. A man and a woman, both dressed in pristine desert camo, and both unpleasantly familiar to the waiting men. Agent Lynch and Captain Sosa.

Tired as he was, Hannibal could not muster either surprise or anger. He had spent the last four hours trying to deduce who had intervened on their behalf and given them safe passage through Baghdad airspace, and he had considered more than once that Lynch or Sosa may have been involved. But he had not expected both of them, and he was not happy to see them together now. Either one alone meant trouble; the two of them together was more than he thought his tired brain could handle right now.

They reached the row of chairs and halted a few paces from where Hannibal sat. Lynch studied him dispassionately, while Sosa glared at nothing in particular to avoid their hostile gazes.

"Agent Lynch, Captain Sosa. Always a pleasure," he said dryly.

Lynch nodded once. "Smith."

Sosa did not bother with a greeting but demanded, abruptly, "How's Face?"

"We don't know yet. He's still in surgery." Hannibal smiled fractionally at her. "Is this the part where I'm supposed to thank you for your concern? Or for not having us shot down this time?"

Her eyes narrowed in anger. "Don't get cute with me, Smith. It may be too late to shoot you down, but I can still have you thrown in the stockade."

Hannibal knew perfectly well that Charissa Sosa would not have them arrested – not after conniving in their escape less than a year before – but he didn't like her hard-as-nails, bad-ass attitude or her unsettling effect on his lieutenant, so he kept the iron in his voice when he asked, "So what brings you here, Captain? Not Face's health and welfare, I'm guessing, not with another Lynch in tow."

"Lynch is the man who got you here in one piece."

Hannibal gave the agent a long, considering look. Then he growled, "What do we owe you for the favor?"

"We'll discuss that later, when you can keep your mind on the job."

"Discuss _what_?"

"How you plan to salvage the mission."

Dead silence answered him, as the gears finally clicked into place in Hannibal's over-loaded brain and everything suddenly made sense. "You set us up." He shot to his feet, eyes blazing, muscles tensed for battle, weariness and caution burned away by the fury that filled him. "You son of a bitch! _You_ brought us here! This was _your_ mission!"

"No one forced you to accept it."

"You planted that story about Morrison to lure us here, then you sent us into a hot zone without proper intel, and now one of my men is down!"

"Do you think we did this deliberately?" Sosa demanded, distress and anger warring in her face. "We wanted you to retrieve those documents, not get yourselves killed!"

"So, now you're _sorry_ that Face got his skull bashed in?! It's a little late for that, lady!"

"You're the great Colonel Smith," she shot back, anger winning out over any softer emotion, "the man with the plan who always brings his team home safely! How were we supposed to know you'd screw this one up?!"

"You better shut your mouth," B.A. growled, surging forward with fists clenched, too angry even to realize that he was threatening an officer and a woman.

"Stand down, Corporal," Hannibal barked.

"Murdock was right about you. You're nothin' but a devil in spike heels! Face won't be safe till he's a thousand miles away from you!"

"Let's not make this personal," Lynch interjected, bringing Hannibal's full wrath down on him.

"You don't think this is _personal_?" he snarled. "Think again! When you played on our _personal_ feelings about Morrison to get us here, you put my boys in harm's way. Now I hold you _personally_ responsible for what happened to Face, and I will _personally_ see to it that you join him in Intensive Care with a machine to do your breathing for you, if you don't tell me the truth. Are we perfectly clear on that?"

Meeting the colonel's blazing eyes with as much aplomb as he could muster, Lynch answered, dryly, "Perfectly."

"Then start talking. Why did you trick us with fairy tales about Morrison selling secrets to the Iraqis?"

"They weren't fairy tales. Morrison did sell secrets to the insurgents, in exchange for their help in stealing the printing plates."

"That doesn't make any sense. The Iraqis already had the plates, and Morrison colluded with Pike and the other Lynch to steal them."

"The remnants of Saddam's Old Guard had the plates, but they had no plans to move them or the money they'd printed. They had the plates and the press well hidden. They planned to keep their operation under wraps until the U.S. pulled out and left the country to the vultures. Their vultures."

"So Morrison decided to poke the dragon," Hannibal said, grimly.

"Exactly. He bought the help of an insurgent group that had ties to the Old Guard. They weren't able to steal the plates, but they were able to plant rumors and convince the Guard that their hiding place was compromised. The Guard panicked and decided to take the plates out of the city. Morrison was warned of the move, and the rest is, as they say, history."

"Fair enough, but that still doesn't explain why you needed us. Iraq is crawling with U.S. Military, including plenty of Black Ops teams that could do this job for you."

"None as good as the A-Team and none with your history."

Hannibal grimaced in disgust. "We don't work for the government anymore. This wasn't our fight."

"Wasn't it?" Lynch raised a sardonic eyebrow and smirked in a way that made Hannibal long to hit him. "Then why are you here?"

The colonel just glared at him, knowing he was caught but too angry to admit it.

"You want someone to pay for what happened to Peck. I get that. But who sent him into that hot zone, Smith? Me?"

B.A. growled low in his throat. "I'm sick of hearin' how this is Hannibal's fault, and I'm gonna hurt the next person who says it!"

"It's true." Hannibal forced the words out through clenched teeth, driven by basic honesty to say them, no matter how they rankled. "Face was following my orders. It was my plan."

Into the heavy silence that followed this admission, Sosa murmured, "Even the best plans go wrong sometimes."

"Not mine," Hannibal growled.

Murdock tried to smile, but it came out as an agonized twitch. "Actually, Boss, your plans almost always go wrong. And it's almost always Faceman's fault. But you find a way to fix 'em 'cause you're the best."

"This one isn't on Face."

"It isn't on you either," B.A. insisted.

"It doesn't matter who is or isn't to blame," Lynch cut in. "What matters is how you plan to fix it."

All three men stared at him with varying degrees of disbelief and outrage. It was Hannibal who spoke, voicing what all of them were thinking.

"You were serious? You actually expect us to complete the mission?"

"Of course. We need those documents, and we need the leadership of the insurgency liquidated. You and your boys can do that, Smith."

Hannibal shook his head and answered very calmly, "This mess was yours to begin with, so you can clean it up yourself. The only thing that matters to me now is getting my men safely out of Iraq, and if you stand in my way, you could still end up on a ventilator."

At that moment, the double doors at the end of the corridor swung open and Dr. Sajahdi stepped through them. The entire A-Team turned as one man to start toward him, but Lynch caught Hannibal by the arm and held him back.

"We're not finished here, Smith."

Hannibal gave him a scathing look and wrenched his arm free. Lynch made as if to grab him again but Sosa hissed, "Let him go!" and chopped a hand down on his forearm. Hannibal strode off to join his teammates without sparing her so much as a glance.

"We can't just let Smith walk away," Lynch snapped, "and you know it."

"I'm not suggesting that we do, but he's got more important things on his mind at the moment."

"We're talking about national security! Military secrets in the hands of terrorists!"

"Terrorists who've held those secrets for nearly _two_ _years_. A few more _days_ won't make much difference."

"If Smith does his vanishing act now…"

"Are you really that stupid?" Sosa demanded, her beautiful face twisted with contempt. "He's not going anywhere without Face. And Face isn't going anywhere at all… except maybe to the morgue."

"With Peck in the morgue, there's nothing to hold the others here and we lose our leverage."

"Then you'd better pray he survives," she sneered as she stalked off down the hallway toward the elevators, leaving Lynch to stand alone, fuming, in the hallway.

Hannibal reached the others just in time to hear Hadi say, "He'll be in Recovery for another hour at least."

"He made it through the surgery?" Hannibal asked.

Hadi nodded and ran a hand through his sweat-matted hair. He was a tall, lanky, slightly stooped man with an artist's hands and eyes that belonged to a much older, sadder man. His blue scrubs were smeared with blood.

"Then he's gonna be all right," B.A. prompted hopefully.

"He's alive," Hadi said flatly, "and that's all I can tell you."

"Come on, Doc, you were in there for hours, diggin' around in his head. You must know _something_."

"I know we stopped him from bleeding to death, but I do not know if we saved any useful part of his brain."

Murdock blanched, looking as though a good deal of his own blood had just drained out of him, and Hannibal put a comforting hand on his shoulder.

Hadi felt their distress beating at him, but he went on inexorably. "He needs very specialized care, more surgeries, a doctor who understands this type of injury better than I, but I do not know if anyone can help him now. He has suffered massive brain damage, and he is still bleeding into the brain."

"But this is Faceman we're talking about!" Murdock protested. "He's always getting beaten up and shot and tortured and stuff, but it never hurts him much. He always comes out of it smiling. You remember, don't you?"

Hadi smiled wanly. "I remember."

"So you go back in there, and you patch him up, and you tell him Murdock's out here waiting to see him. And tell him I got a double-shot cappuccino with extra foam for him! That'll put a smile on his face!"

Hadi just gazed at the distraught pilot helplessly.

"Take it easy, son," Hannibal murmured.

The eyes Murdock turned on Hannibal were hard with anger and bright with unacknowledged tears. "Don't talk to me like I'm a child, Colonel. I know what you're trying to say, and I'm not gonna listen to any more of it." He tore away from the colonel's restraining hand and strode toward the surgery wing doors. "I got somewhere I need to be."

"Face is in Recovery," Hadi protested. "They won't let you in."

Murdock halted with one hand on the swinging door, ready to push it open, and turned to glare at the doctor. "Yes, they will."

"C'mon, Crazy Man," B.A. urged, "don't do this now. You ain't helpin' Faceman any."

"He needs to know I'm here," Murdock insisted, his tone softening as he met B.A.'s pleading gaze. "You know how it works, Bosco. He expects me to be with him. I _have_ to be with him. He won't die if…" The pilot broke off and his face contracted with pain, but in the next breath he regained control and said, firmly, "Face won't leave me." With that, he shoved the door open and slipped through it.

As the door swung shut behind Murdock, Hadi said, "They won't allow him in Recovery."

Hannibal gave him a bleak smile. "I don't think he'll give them a choice."

Hadi shrugged. "Well, maybe he's right. Maybe Face won't die while he's there."

"Murdock's right about a lot of things," B.A. rumbled softly, "but he's also crazy. And this is gonna kill 'im."

The others just stared at him, not knowing what to say. Finally Hannibal broke the silence to ask, "What's our next step?"

"We wait."

"Should we look for a better-equipped hospital?"

"This is the best hospital in Baghdad. It would only endanger Face to move him."

"What about another doctor? No offense, Hadi, but you said yourself that you can't treat his injuries."

"I cannot. Nor can any doctor in this city, except possibly for one of your military surgeons."

Hannibal chewed on that for a minute. "Would an expert neurosurgeon make a difference to Face's chances?"

"It might keep him alive longer. Beyond that," Hadi spread his hands helplessly, "I do not know."

"How're you gonna get your hands on a military surgeon?" B.A. asked. "Sneak into the Green Zone and kidnap one?"

"If that's what it takes."

"Don't do anything rash, Smith." They all turned in surprise to see Lynch standing just behind them. He smiled sardonically at their massed glares. "There are other ways to get what you want."

* * *

"Hey, Face. It's me." Murdock sat perched on the edge of the bed to Face's left, one hand braced on the other side of his still body so he could lean over him, bringing his presence and his voice close to his injured friend. "It's Murdock. Sorry it took me so long to get here, but you know what hospitals are like. Rules and more rules."

Face gave no sign that he heard. He lay against a heap of pillows, his left eye, cheekbone and temple covered in bloodstained bandages, with purple-black bruises circling his right eye and spilling down his face. His right shoulder and hand were also swathed in bandages, the hand tied into a splint and propped on yet more pillows. He looked worse than he had in the wadi, crushed and brutalized and lost among a mass of medical paraphernalia that could do nothing to help him.

Murdock saw all of this, and beneath his assumed layer of calm, he was howling in pain. But only the intentness of his gaze betrayed how deeply he suffered. His expression was bland, his voice edged with wry humor, his hand completely steady when he lifted it to touch the thick dressing over Face's eye.

"Now that everybody's where they're supposed to be, you can wake up and we can do this right. Come on, buddy. Time to face the music."

His fingers rested lightly on the bandage and his eyes brightened suspiciously, but he kept his voice level. "You know how this works. I sit here and listen while you swear and tell jokes and flirt with the nurses. And when you run out of tricks, I turn on the crazy a little to chase away the heebie-jeebies. We got this down, Faceguy. We're master-class. I can talk you through anything, no matter how bad it hurts, so let me talk you through this."

He studied his friend's sleeping face for a long moment, then went on in a low, intent voice that grew more desperate with every word. "I'm not mad, even though you broke your promise. I know that's what you're thinking… that you let me down and I'll give you Hell for it, but I won't. I swear. I'll forgive you for every stupid, reckless, careless thing you ever did. Every time you walked in front of a bullet when you could've ducked or got yourself stuffed in a stack of tires and lit on fire over some woman. I'll forget all the times you scared the crap outta me, then made me sit beside your hospital bed and laugh at your dumb jokes. I'll forget that you _promised_ you'd come outta that truck in one piece, you _promised_ you'd be careful, if you just wake up and talk to me.

"Wake up, Face." He waited, staring hungrily at his friend, for a sign that he knew wasn't coming. "Wake up!You gotta wake up and talk to me! This isn't right… this hiding in the dark, all alone, with no one to help you… I just wanna help you, Face! I just need to hear your voice!"

He waited for another long, tense minute, his eyes searching the face of his unconscious friend, then he sighed wearily and sagged in defeat. His gaze skated away from Face's bruised, bandaged features and searched for a place to rest that bore no signs of injury or suffering. He spotted Face's left hand lying on the blanket, the knuckles bloody where he'd split them on someone's teeth but otherwise undamaged. Shifting his weight off his right arm and straightening up, he clasped Face's hand in both of his own, staring down at it sadly, running his thumb over the torn knuckles.

"I get it," he murmured. "You're not ready. You think it's safer where you are. But you're wrong, buddy. You're wrong. We should be doing this together."

Reluctant tears began to slip down his cheeks. He bent his head and rested their clasped hands against his forehead, whispering, "Jesus, Face, I'm sorry. Sorry I let you down, sorry I didn't get there in time to stop this… I swear, if you just trust me and wake up, I'll never leave you alone again. But you gotta trust me… you gotta come back, 'cause I can't stand the silence anymore! Please, Face, pl…"

"Murdock."

The unexpected voice went through him like an electric shock, cutting him off in mid-word and bringing his head around with a snap to find Hannibal standing at the foot of the bed. He swiped hastily at his face with his sleeve, trying to erase the tear stains before his commander saw them. But it was clear from Hannibal's expression that he'd heard enough of the conversation to know what state Murdock was in.

"You okay, Captain?"

"Yeah, I'm… Yeah." He dropped his arm, giving up on the attempt to mask his distress.

"Maybe you should take a break. Let B.A. sit with him."

"No, I'm okay. I'm good. I… I promised Face I'd be here when he woke up."

Hannibal eyed him narrowly. "You need to hold it together, Murdock. I'm counting on you. _Face_ is counting on you."

"I know. I will." Murdock straightened his shoulders in a show of resolve, and his clutch on Face's hand tightened.

Hannibal continued to study him for another long moment, then nodded once and dropped his gaze to the man in the bed. "I need to talk to you, Murdock. Outside."

"I can't leave 'im…"

"He won't know you're gone." Turning dark, hunted eyes on the pilot, he repeated, "Outside, Captain."

The authority in his voice was unmistakable and the message clear. He had serious team business to discuss. Murdock obediently rose from his seat, laid Face's hand on the blanket, and traipsed across the room with hunched shoulders.

As he stepped into the hallway, he found himself confronted by Hadi, B.A. and a smallish man dressed in a doctor's white coat over Army fatigues. The stranger had mild, smiling, green eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses that gazed blandly at Murdock as he stepped forward and held out one hand.

"Captain Murdock, I presume." His voice was as pleasant and colorless as the rest of him.

Murdock pointedly ignored the hand. "Who're you?"

"This is Doctor Finch," Hadi interjected. "He's the most respected neurologist in the U.S. military, and he's agreed to take over Face's treatment."

"Lynch sent him?" Murdock demanded, his eyes narrowed with suspicion as they jumped from Hannibal to Hadi to the patiently-smiling Finch.

Finch nodded and slipped his hand into his pocket, relieving Murdock of the need to decide whether or not he would shake it.

"He's the only doctor in Iraq who might be able to help Face."

" _If_ he's who he says he is. I don't trust anyone sent by Lynch. And what's with the names, anyway? Lynch, Finch, it sounds like another Company trick to me."

"Just a coincidence, believe me," Finch assured him, with no sign of pique at his reception.

"He is Marcus Finch," Hadi assured the scowling pilot. "He used to do seminars at the University on treating combat injuries to the brain – amazing stuff. I attended them whenever I could. I recognized him immediately."

Doctor Finch looked faintly embarrassed by Hadi's praise and stepped in to say, "You're welcome to examine my _bona fides_ , Captain. I would, in your place. But I will point out that Lieutenant Peck has gone several hours – very crucial hours – without proper treatment. He cannot afford to wait much longer."

"I believe he's the real Marcus Finch," Hannibal stated flatly, "and I've agreed to give him access to Face and all his medical records. But that doesn't mean I trust him."

All eyes swiveled toward the colonel, a variety of expressions from disbelief to amusement on their faces.

"That's what I want you for, Murdock. You're Finch's shadow, and you're Face's protection." Murdock grinned in relief. "When Finch is with Face, you're there. He tells you what he's doing and why he's doing it. And when you say stop, he stops."

"Hannibal, I do not think…" Hadi began, but Hannibal cut him off.

"Murdock has the medical knowledge to understand what's happening. And we can trust him implicitly to do what's best for Faceman, no matter what the cost to the rest of us. That's what I want."

Dr. Finch gazed thoughtfully at the pilot for a long moment, measuring him with deceptively bland eyes. Then he smiled. "I accept your terms, with one caveat."

Murdock's expression darkened. "What's that?"

"You may not accompany your friend into the operating room. That would distract me and endanger his life."

It was Murdock's turn to measure the other man and weigh his words. Finally, he nodded his agreement. "As long as I know what you're planning before you go in."

The two men started into Face's room, still negotiating terms and ignoring the others.

"I'll prepare you all I can, Captain, but I'm sure you know that emergency surgery of any kind, especially of the brain, requires improvisation. We must respond to what we find."

The others watched them until the door swung shut behind them, cutting off their view and their words. Then B.A. turned to his commander and asked, "You really think this is a good idea? Trustin' him?"

"Who? Finch or Murdock?"

"Finch."

"You can trust him, B.A.," Hadi put in. "He is the best combat surgeon I have ever seen."

"We can trust his skills, but what about his motives?"

"You have already threatened to tear his arms off, if he hurts Face." He smiled at the glowering corporal. "No one would take such a threat from you lightly."

"And Murdock is there to watch him," Hannibal added.

"Yeah." B.A. turned to stare at the closed door, his expression grim. "Crazy Man is on the edge. If somethin' happens to Face…"

"He'll do better now that he has a mission. It's the waiting that gets to him, and the silence."

B.A. nodded. After a moment's pause, he said, his voice low and rough, "Did you… How's he… ?"

"You can go in and see for yourself. I'm sure Hadi will bend the rules and let more than one visitor in there, for us. For Face."

The big man's shoulders hunched defensively and he turned away from the door. "Nah, let 'im rest. Let Murdock do his thing. Y'know they got this whole routine, when Face is hurt. I don't wanna mess that up."

Hannibal clasped his shoulder for a moment in silent understanding. "Just don't wait too long, Big Guy."

B.A. did not have to ask what he meant. "I won't."

* * *

Once again, Murdock sat beside his friend's bed and watched him sleep. Face had survived another marathon surgery, and the doctors claimed that he was better – that they'd stopped the bleeding, relieved the pressure on his brain and halted his rapid deterioration – but Murdock could not have known that by looking at him. The monitors still flashed, the IVs still dripped and Face still slept, unknowing and uncaring.

Only one thing had visibly changed – his hair was gone.

They had chopped off Face's hair before the surgery, demolishing the thick, dark, waving mane that was as much a part of his face as his wicked smile and incandescent eyes. Without it, he looked impossibly young and fragile, with a soft dusting of strangely light, bright hair covering his scalp. He still looked beautiful, Murdock thought. They could have peeled off his skin and turned it inside out, and Face would still look beautiful. But the sight of him made Murdock strangely sad.

Hannibal and B.A. stood at the foot of the bed, gazing grimly at their teammate and reminding Murdock that he had to hold it together. He couldn't come unglued, or Hannibal would send him away. And if that happened, if he couldn't be here for Face when his best friend needed him the most, he really would go crazy. So he carefully hid his fears and his wounds, satisfying himself by covering Face's hand with his own and murmuring, "It's gonna be all right now, Faceman, you just wait and see."

B.A. spoke up, his voice low and rough in the quiet room. "I wonder if he knows."

"That they cut off his hair?" Murdock asked.

"Any of it. What those animals in the truck did to him, what the doctors did to him after, any of it." He swallowed painfully. "They took his left eye out, y'know."

Murdock's fingers tightened convulsively around Face's but he held his composure. "We knew that was coming."

"And they've gone and cut off his hair. By the time they're done, he won't be our Faceman no more."

"Hair grows back," Hannibal said.

"And they can replace his eye," Murdock added.

"That's a lot to put him through for no reason," Hannibal murmured sadly.

"No reason?"

"You heard what the doctor said, Murdock. Thanks to the bleeding, he's blind, or nearly blind, in the right eye too. Between that and the brain damage, do you think he's going to care what his face looks like?"

" _I'll_ care. I won't let them leave him like this, with his face all crushed and his eye gone. I won't let them do that to our Faceman."

Hannibal gave no answer to this, and all three of them fell quiet until the colonel finally broached the subject that had been foremost in all their minds since the moment Face came out of surgery alive.

"It's time for us to go, Murdock. To complete the mission as promised."

The pilot nodded without shifting his gaze from Face.

"Lynch did his part, now we have to do ours."

"When?"

"Tonight."

That finally got a reaction from Murdock. He looked up at the colonel in alarm and blurted out, "No! Not yet!"

"We gotta do this, Crazy Man," B.A. urged.

"I know, but not till Face wakes up."

B.A. gave a grunt of pain, and Hannibal quickly stepped in. "We can't wait. We have an obligation to fulfill our part of the bargain, even if you leave out the importance of the mission."

"But Doctor Finch said it would be soon. Eighteen hours, twenty four at the most..."

" _If_ he wakes up, Murdock. If he stands any chance at all, it will happen soon. That's what Finch said, and we all know what it really means. He doesn't expect Face to wake up at all. He was just giving us a... a deadline of sorts."

"Then wait for the deadline," Murdock insisted.

"We can't. The battery in that tracking device will be dead in another day or two. If we don't go after Al Fayed now, we'll lose him for good. Then someone else will have to start all this again, putting yet another soldier in harm's way to find these bastards, while Al Fayed makes plans to use our Military secrets against us. Can you live with that?"

Murdock shook his head.

"I didn't think so. It has to be now."

"I know." The captain's eyes strayed back to the man in the bed and rested there, dwelling sadly on the familiar face that now seemed so battered and strange. After a long moment of silence, he murmured, "I can't go with you."

Unbelievably, the colonel chuckled. "I know that."

Murdock shot a disbelieving look at his commander, saw the affection and understanding in his face and demanded, perversely, "You don't need me?"

"Of course we do. We need you here. Someone has to stay with Face, and you don't think I'd abandon him to Captain Sosa's tender mercies, do you? Besides, you're his protection, and what good is protection when it's hundreds of miles away in a firefight?"

"But how will you handle the mission without a point man or air support?"

Hannibal's smile turned wry. "Are you trying to talk me out of letting you stay?"

"No! But..."

"Have a little faith in the Old Man," he chided. "Face already completed his part of the plan by getting that tracking device into the hands of the insurgents, so we don't need a point man, and I can adjust the plan for a lack of air support."

Murdock looked unconvinced and thoroughly unhappy. Hannibal placed a hand on his shoulder and said, "Trust me, we'll be fine as long as we know you're here with Face."

Murdock smiled – the first genuine smile he'd managed in days – and looked fondly at his teammates. "You guys better get moving and get this mission done. You want to be here when he wakes up."

A shadow crossed Hannibal's face, but he kept his voice level. "Don't start worrying if you don't hear from us for a few days. It may take some time to locate Al Fayed, especially if he isn't in Tikrit and we have to track him down."

"Can I contact you through Lynch?"

Hannibal shook his head dourly. "I don't trust Lynch _or_ the Company as far as I can spit and I don't want him on our sixes. We're flying solo on this one. So are you, I'm afraid. And Murdock, watch out for Sosa. I don't know where she is - I haven't seen her around the hospital lately - but I don't want her anywhere near Face."

"Got it." Murdock stood up to shake Hannibal's hand and give B.A. a brief, fierce hug. "Stay safe, Big Guy."

"I will." He cuffed Murdock gently on the shoulder. "If Faceman wakes up before we get back, you tell him I said 'hey'."

"We'll be back before you know it," Hannibal said. "Take care, Captain."

"Yeah."

Then they were gone, and Murdock was alone in the little room, with no one but the comatose Face for company.

* * *

It was late, nearly two AM, and the hospital seemed to sleep. Captain Sosa knew this was an illusion and any disturbance would bring watchful staff running to investigate, so she was glad she'd worn soft-soled shoes that allowed her to walk quietly on the hard linoleum floors. Not that she cared if the hospital staff knew she was there. She had every right to be, and with Smith and the Team gone, she had no fear of being denied access to Face's room. But she wanted to spend the next hour with Face, not arguing with nurses and security guards, so she moved down the dim hallway with uncharacteristic stealth.

The little room was dark, except for the glowing displays on some of the machines that only seemed to deepen the surrounding night. Charissa paused in the doorway to let her eyes adjust. Something stirred in the shadows, and a figure uncoiled from a chair beside the bed, rising to confront her.

"Who's there?" she demanded.

The figure did not answer but drew instinctively closer to the bed at the sound of her voice, as if hoping to shield the man sleeping in it from her presence.

She could see him now - scruffy and lanky, dressed in a battered leather flight jacket with a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. "Murdock," she said, an accusing note in her voice. "What are you doing here?"

"Visiting a friend," Murdock answered in a flat, humorless voice that loaded his words with irony. "What do you want, Captain?"

Sosa hesitated, not sure how far she could push him. Then she abruptly decided to take the offensive. "I _thought_ you would all be in the field, doing your jobs," she sneered. "I _thought_ maybe Face could use some company, while his team was out cleaning up the mess they left when they abandoned the mission. But obviously I was wrong."

Murdock eyed her appreciatively, showing no sign that her attack had so much as scratched his armor. "Yeah, you were wrong," he said. "Face isn't alone, and he won't be, so you can slither on back to whatever rock you crawled out from under and tell Lynch that the A-Team has the situation under control."

"Why _aren't_ you in the field with Smith?" she demanded.

"Why do you care?" he countered. Then he smiled beatifically, as if the truth had just dawned on him, and exclaimed, "Oh, right! 'Cause if I were in the field, no one would be here to stop you from sinking your sexy fangs into Faceman again. Sorry, Captain," his voice hardened, "no midnight snack for you."

Charissa stared at him in mingled anger and bewilderment. "Is that what you think I want? To make a meal out of Face?"

"That's what predators do."

"You're insane."

"You're not the first person to notice."

In her earnest desire to make him understand, she took a step closer to Murdock, hands lifted in a placating gesture. "I want to talk to Face, that's all. To sit with him for..." Charissa's words died in her throat as Murdock reacted instantly, stepping between her and the bed, blocking both her path and her view of the still figure in it. For the first time since she had met the erratic pilot, she felt the menace in him, the sense of danger that was so immediate and obvious in the rest of the team.

"You'd better go, Captain," he said, his voice once more devoid of emotion.

"Face would want me here," she insisted, too stubborn to give ground, even when she knew she was losing the battle.

"Maybe, but he's not in any condition to tell me that, so I'll just have to judge for myself."

"You have no right to keep me away from him. You're not his doctor or his family..."

She knew at once that she'd made another mistake when she saw Murdock's eyes narrow and heard the naked fury in his voice. "I'm not family, huh? Well, what are you, lady? A predator looking for a meal? Or just a selfish bitch who doesn't want him for herself but can't stand to have him care for anyone else?"

She gaped at him for a moment, then blurted out, "You're jealous! _You_ want him!"

Murdock laughed, his rage fading as quickly as it had come. "Of course that's where you'd go. Ever heard of a _friend_ , Captain? People who look out for each other? Watch each other's backs? It's nice. You oughta give it a try sometime, if you can find anyone who cares enough about your back to give it a second thought."

"If you're not jealous, why do you hate me so much?" she asked.

"I don't hate you. I just want you gone."

" _Why_?"

"Because the Colonel gave me orders, and I intend to follow 'em. And because I don't trust you as far as I can spit."

"I'm trying to help…"

Murdock grinned suddenly, his teeth flashing in the darkness. "That's a good one."

"I am!"

"The way you helped us to a Court Martial and prison sentence? Or the way you helped us into an ambush in the Iraqi desert? You're just all kinds of helpful, aren't you? Go on, now, Cap'n. Nobody's buying your concerned friend routine around here, so just go on back to your pretty little office in the Pentagon, and leave Face to us. We'll look after 'im."

"He would want me here," Sosa muttered stubbornly.

"When he wakes up and asks for you, I'll give you a call." At her scornful glance he added, "You have my word. Do you honestly think I'd deny Face anything he wanted? Even you?"

She hesitated, weighing his words, then reluctantly shook her head. Without another word, she turned on her heel and strode out of the room.

Murdock moved swiftly and quietly after her, halting in the doorway to peer down the hall. He watched Sosa disappear around a corner, then he waited for a full minute, staring suspiciously up and down the empty corridor, before he finally relaxed. Pulling off his baseball cap with a sigh, he scrubbed his fingers through his hair. "I'm sorry you had to hear that," he murmured, as he padded back over to the bed. "Some people just don't know when to leave."

He switched on the small light above the bed and stood gazing down at his unconscious friend. Gently, he rested the back of his hand against Face's undamaged cheek, then he stroked his fingers over what was left of his hair. "It's just you and me now, buddy."

Without waiting for an answer he knew wasn't coming, he circled the bed to his usual place on Face's left and sat down on the edge of the mattress. Lacing his fingers through the other man's, he propped their clasped hands on his knee and turned eyes on Face that were tired and sad and full of uncomplicated affection. "Y'know, if you want her here, you just gotta say so. Anything for you, Faceman. You just say the word."

He waited expectantly for a moment, then gave his friend a weary half smile. "No, huh? Okay. But if you change your mind… Whatever you want. Whatever it takes."

Reaching up to brush his fingertips over the bandage that covered Face's eye, he drew in a long, shaking breath and let it out slowly, fighting for control. "God, I miss you, Face," he murmured softly.

With that, he fell quiet. Lifting Face's hand, he clasped it tightly in both of his own, then he settled himself more comfortably in his seat on the mattress, obviously preparing for a long wait. As an afterthought, he switched off the light and plunged the room into darkness again.

Nothing moved for a very long time. Nothing disturbed the sleeping quiet of the room. Murdock was fighting sleep and wondering if he shouldn't move into a chair where he could nap without falling over, when he heard footsteps on the linoleum floor. Turning quickly, expecting to see Captain Sosa back for another skirmish, he found Hadi instead. The young doctor moved up to the opposite side of the bed and switched on the light. He cast a glance over his patient, then another over the man holding vigil beside him.

"You should rest, Murdock."

"Why is that the first thing anyone says to me when they come in here? They don't ask how Face is doing or if there's been any change. They just say 'get some rest'."

Hadi almost smiled. "That's because we can see how Face is doing, and he is resting. You are not."

"Face isn't resting. He's hiding."

"Hiding from what?"

"Me. You. What's under that bandage on his head. Everything."

"That does not sound like the Face I know." Hadi pulled another chair up to the bed and sank into it. Steepling his fingers, he propped his chin on them and gazed steadily across at Murdock. "Has he changed so much since you left this country?"

"No." Murdock looked away from the doctor uncomfortably. "He hasn't changed at all."

"You are tired, Murdock, and you are placing your own fears on Face."

"Then why doesn't he wake up and let me help?"

"Because he cannot. It's as simple as that."

The pilot shook his head stubbornly. "I don't accept that, doc. I can't. 'Cause if Face can't wake up, then I've killed him. Killed my best friend. And I can't live with that."

"I won't waste my time telling you not to blame yourself. No one in this place ever listens to a doctor when he says those words."

Murdock gave him a wan smile. "Between repeating 'get some rest' and 'it's not your fault' till you're blue in the face, you must get tired of talkin' to yourself."

"I do." Hadi leaned back in his chair and let his eyes drift shut. "Very tired."

"Okay, let's talk about somethin' we can…" Murdock broke off and stared down at where he held Face's hand clasped in both of his own. His expression turned quizzical. "Doc?"

"What?" Hadi demanded sleepily, cracking open one eye.

"Face's hand just moved." His eyes suddenly alight with hope and his posture tense with excitement, he called desperately, "Face? Are you with me? C'mon, buddy, gimme a sign!"

Hadi was up out of his chair in an instant, suddenly fully awake. "Comatose patients often move. It does not necessarily mean…"

"This is the first time he's twitched since we found him. It has to mean _something!_ "

"Hm." Hadi studied the bank of machines at Face's head, frowning, then turned to examine his patient. At the same moment, Murdock gave a shout of mingled pain and surprise.

"Jesus, Face, ease up! You're gonna break my hand!"

Hadi reached over to break Face's white-knuckled grip on Murdock's hand. He laid Face's hand on his midriff, where it clutched convulsively at the blanket. "Keep talking to him."

"Is he waking up?"

"Yes."

"I'm right here, buddy." Murdock reached over to cover Face's hand with his own. "Hang onto me. Hang on." Face's fingers tightened around his once more. "It's gonna be okay, I promise. You're safe in the hospital with me and Doc Hadi."

"Nnngh!" Face stiffened, his head sinking into the pillow as his back arched in pain. As Murdock watched, appalled, hot tears began to slide through his lashes.

"No," Murdock sobbed in protest. "Don't, Face, please!" He clasped Face's head between his hands, lifting it away from the pillow, trying to ease the desperate tension in his muscles and draw his attention. "Listen to me, Face! Listen… You know you can do this. We can do it together. You just gotta hang onto me and ride it out."

Face took another shuddering breath and made a low, wordless sound in his throat that raised the hair on the nape of Murdock's neck.

"Shh-shh. I've got you, buddy. It's okay. It's me, Face. It's Murdock."

Face's reaction was immediate and shocking. He turned abruptly toward the sound of his friend's voice and lifted his hand to find him, scrabbling for a grip on the pilot's leather-clad sleeve.

"M-murddgh..."

"Holy shit!" Murdock breathed. He started to laugh, but it turned to a sob when Face tried once more to say his name.

"M-mm-murgh..."

"Yeah, it's me. It's Murdock. Jesus, Face, I knew you could do it! I knew you wouldn't leave me like this!" Shooting a wild, triumphant look at Hadi, he caught the doctor's grim expression and sobered instantly. "What is it? He said my name, Doc! You heard him!"

"I heard."

Before Hadi could explain his dour tone, Murdock was distracted by a low, agonized sound from the bed. He turned his attention back to Face and found the lieutenant struggling to breathe while his hand opened and closed convulsively on Murdock's arm.

"Can't you help him, Doc? Give him something for the pain?"

"Just enough to take the edge off," Hadi cautioned. "I don't want to put him under again."

"Anything. C'mon, Face, let it go. Breathe it out. You know how to do this, buddy. You've done it a hundred times. Listen to Murdock."

"M-mmm..."

"Yeah, that's right. Listen and trust me. Breathe."

Face shuddered and closed his eye. Tears pulsed from beneath his lashes and painted streaks on his bruised cheek. "Murd-dngh!"

"I'm here, Face. I'm here." Shooting a glance at Hadi, he asked, "Will it hurt him if I move him?"

Hadi brandished a needle in one hand, the other holding the tube of Face's IV. "I do not think it will make a difference in his current condition."

Turning back to Face, Murdock shifted his hold on the injured man and lifted him gently away from the mattress. Face gasped in pain, but when Murdock pulled him close and rested his weight against his own chest, Face seemed to relax. Murdock held him carefully, cradling his head against his shoulder, and murmured encouragement to him.

"That's it. You rest now. I've got you, Face. I've got you safe. Doc Hadi gave you something for the pain, and you'll feel better in a minute. Just hang onto ol' Murdock and ride it out."

Face clutched spasmodically at his jacket and gave another formless cry. But as the breath sobbed out of his lungs, his muscles began to loosen and Murdock felt his tension ease.

"Shh. That's it." He rocked ever so slightly, more to calm himself than the injured man in his arms, and repeated his quietly soothing noises in a whisper.

Hadi watched the read-outs on the machines until he was certain that Face slept. Then he placed a hand on Murdock's shoulder to still him and murmured, "Put him down. Make him comfortable."

"He is comfortable." Murdock made no move to release his friend. "He's just fine where he is."

Hadi gazed at them both for a moment, then offered a weary half-smile. "Yes, he is."

"You just rest now, Face," Murdock murmured to the top of Face's head. "Rest as long as you like. It's gonna be okay."

Hadi switched off the light and settled into the chair he had abandoned so abruptly a few minutes before.

"You stayin', Doc?"

"Until my shift starts, at least. I want to be here when he wakes again."

"Yeah." Murdock settled his sleeping burden a little more comfortably and propped his chin on Face's bent head. "Me, too."

* * *

Hannibal lay flat on the rooftop, the fierce Iraqi sun beating down on his back, and peered through his field glasses at the building across the alley. A row of three narrow windows opened on the corner room of the top floor. They were clearly designed to keep out the heat and sunlight, not to allow an unobstructed view of the room inside, but after hours of staring intently at the shadowed interior, Hannibal had a pretty good idea of what was going on in there.

Pitching his voice to carry no farther than the microphone at his throat, he said, "Target verified, B.A. The bastard's in there."

"Roger that," B.A. responded. "I've got a jeep approaching the front. Three men and a rear-mounted 30-calibre gun."

"Wait till they're past the guard post, then we'll move."

B.A. paused for a moment, watching the progress of the jeep, then muttered, "He's in."

"Go, B.A.!"

"Roger and out."

Hannibal set his field glasses aside and checked his watch. B.A. would be here in three minutes. That gave him plenty of time.

Taut with purpose but still utterly calm, he methodically checked all his weapons to make sure they were loaded and working. Then he did a sweep of the surrounding alleys and rooftops, mentally ticking off every living thing he saw as harmless or expected. Finally, after another glance at his watch, he slid the glasses into their case on his belt and reached for the grappling hook gun that lay beside him.

On cue, he heard the roar of an engine approaching and the shouts of angry men. A few seconds later, anger turned to fear, something heavy crashed through a barbed wire barrier, and the engine roar climbed to a whining, desperate pitch.

Hannibal got to his feet, bent double to keep himself hidden by the raised sandstone lip of the rooftop, and snugged the grappling hook gun into his shoulder. A tremendous explosion rocked the other building, and in the same instant, Hannibal fired.

B.A. rolled from the cab of the SUV a heartbeat before it crashed through the barrier at the front of Al Fayed's compound. No one saw him scramble into the shadows of the wall, with all eyes glued to the heavy truck bearing down on them. The metal bar he had wedged against the gas pedal held, and the truck just kept going, even when it plowed into the jeep and sent its rear-mounted gun crashing to the ground.

He edged around the wall to watch the progress of his distraction. The truck hit the front of the building and stopped, but its engine continued to strain. The corporal allowed himself one triumphant grin, then he lifted the little, black transmitter he held and pushed the button.

The car bomb exploded in a very satisfying ball of fire, as fifty pounds of explosives tried to rip the front off the building. B.A. took advantage of the resulting chaos and the pall of smoke that hid him from the upper windows, to pull himself over the wall and drop into the maelstrom on the other side.

His local dress gave him a modicum of cover. After more than a day of studying the men inside the compound, he had put together a uniform that matched the insurgents' dress very closely. And right now, they had no time for more than a cursory glance at the big man in the striped kaffiyeh. B.A. skirted the burning truck and scrambled over a pile of rubble where a stretch of wall with a barred window used to be. Inside, he found more rubble, a haze of burning smoke and a mob of men all shouting and waving their weapons. He pushed his way through them, ignoring their demands for information, and made for the stairs.

Hannibal slid down the nylon rope and hit the window feet first. It popped open, the wooden frame tearing free of the old, dry stone that made up the wall, and he tumbled through it. As he rolled to his feet, he swept the room with the muzzle of his M5 and barked in Arabic, "Hands up and don't move!"

The four men in the room froze, more from surprise than fear, and Hannibal took advantage of the moment to snatch the weapon from the hands of the nearest insurgent. He tossed the gun out of the window and put his back to the wall, once again sweeping them with his automatic rifle. They stared at him in disbelief, and when one turned to mutter a question at his companion, Hannibal fired a bullet past his head.

"Silence! Don't move!"

One man sat at the table, a pile of Euros, an empty money belt and a radio in front of him, a pistol only a foot from his right hand. He looked at Hannibal with no fear in his eyes, only keen intelligence and a healthy dose of hate. Hannibal had never seen a picture of Al Fayed, the leader of the Fists of Righteousness, but he knew him in an instant.

With the barrel of his gun, he motioned the three men who were standing to step back from the table. As he did so, he saw the shadows beyond the door move, and B.A. stepped into the room. Hannibal greeted him with a grin.

"Bind and gag them, Corporal, and put them in the next room. And relieve our friend here of his weapons."

B.A. slid Al Fayed's pistol into his own belt, then proceeded to search him from scalp to toenails. The other men watching were growing increasingly angry at this treatment of their revered leader, but Hannibal's rock-steady weapon and piercing gaze convinced them that discretion was the better part of valor and they remained still.

When Al Fayed was stripped of weapons and bound tightly to his chair, B.A. made short work of the others. In roughly a minute, the three men were trussed like turkeys, gagged with duct tape, and left on the floor of the next room. B.A. locked the door of their prison, then checked the hallway and locked the door, planting his back against it.

Hannibal scanned the room until he spotted a small, steel safe tucked into one corner. Ignoring Al Fayed, he strode over to it and knelt to examine the lock.

"An old piece of junk. Blow it, Corporal."

B.A. started for the safe, a canvas bag of explosives slung over his shoulder, while Hannibal returned to the table to examine the items resting on it.

As Hannibal lifted the money belt and worked at something behind the buckle, Al Fayed spoke for the first time, his voice dripping with scorn. "Your money is there. Take it and go."

Hannibal grinned appreciatively at him. "Not bad, for a guy who doesn't speak English. But this isn't about money."

"With you Westerners, it is always about money."

"You've been listening to your own propaganda for too long." Hannibal tossed the belt onto the table and held up a tiny tracking device. "We gave you the money. Why would we risk our lives to get it back?"

"You." Al Fayed's expression became, if possible, even more scornful. "You sent the assassin, with his weak lies and tainted money, to lure me to my death."

Hannibal turned a glare on him so fierce that it nearly flayed the skin from his bones. "He was no assassin. He was a soldier, doing his job, and he was a friend of mine." Leaning close to the other man, unfazed by the mad fire in his eyes, he went on in a hard, quiet, utterly threatening tone, "If I were you, I'd be thanking Allah that I am also a soldier, doing a job. Because if I were a soulless animal like you, I'd be staking you out in the desert with your skull bashed in to see how long it took the vultures to find you. Just like you did to my friend."

"He met the fate of all enemies of Allah, as will you."

"Not in _your_ lifetime."

"So you will kill me. Assassins, after all."

"Whether you live or die is of no interest to me — though that whole vulture experiment is starting to look pretty good, now that I've met you."

"Better take cover, Boss," B.A. called from his place hunched over the safe.

Hannibal promptly abandoned his war of words with Al Fayed and dragged him, chair and all, over to the farthest corner of the room. There, he turned his back on the room, placing his body between the bound man and the promised explosion. B.A. joined them, clutching a radio detonator.

"Fire in the hole!"

He pressed the trigger, and a deafening blast of noise and heat rocked the little room. Before the echoes had died, Hannibal was across the room, wrenching the twisted door away to expose the interior of the safe. He pulled out a stack of papers and began rifling through them. B.A. joined him and offered the canvas bag.

"Just bring it all, man."

"We have to be sure the files are here. That's why I kept Al Fayed with us, instead of throwing him in with the others."

"Or shooting him in the head," B.A. growled.

"Or shooting him in the head, as he so richly deserves. If they aren't here, we need him for information."

B.A. cocked his head, listening to the pounding of feet and shouting on the stairs. "Or to use as a human shield. Let's get the Hell outta here, man."

The colonel paused and held up a file with the familiar Department of Defense seal on the front. "Bingo. Okay, let's bring it all."

"How 'bout the shield?"

"We'll move faster without him."

They shoved the entire contents of the safe into B.A.'s bag and jumped to their feet. Men were moving in the hallway outside the room, calling to their leader. Al Fayed opened his mouth to answer, but thought better of it when he saw Hannibal's rifle pointed at his forehead. The two Americans raced across the room to the window, pausing only to whack Al Fayed on the head to keep him quiet, and scrambled through. B.A. had to abandon his kaffiyeh and bandoliers and tore the front of his shirt as he squeezed through.

They were out the window and climbing hand-over-hand up the rope to the higher rooftop across the alley when the insurgents burst into the room. Hannibal reached the safety of the other roof and drew his knife, ready to cut the rope, but B.A. was still only halfway there. Changing his mind, he unslung his rifle and leveled it on the windows. The first head that poked out of the window jerked back again when a shell nearly carried away one ear. The others hung back, and Hannibal peppered the wall with shots to discourage them while B.A. finished his climb.

B.A. had only just reached the roof and drawn his own knife to cut the rope when they heard the shattering roar of a chopper engine approaching. B.A. craned his neck, searching for the source of the noise, while Hannibal continued to sweep the compound with covering fire.

"Cut the damned rope!" he shouted.

B.A. complied, but more than half his attention was on the unseen chopper. "How we gonna get outta here if they got air support?!"

Hannibal watched the rope drop away and sprayed the opposite building with bullets one more time. Then he bounded to his feet, ducked low to stay hidden, and clapped B.A. on the shoulder. "Let's go!"

They ran for the access door in the middle of the roof. Behind them, shouts and shots came from the insurgents' compound, while in the street below, someone was banging on the door of their own building and cursing loudly. Just as Hannibal reached the access door and slipped the bolt, he was hit by a wall of noise and wind that nearly threw him off his feet. B.A. screamed a warning and pointed at the huge, black helicopter rising up over the rooftop.

Both men swung their weapons around to defend themselves, but both hesitated when they saw a familiar figure in a black flight suit beckoning to them. Hannibal exchanged a look with B.A. then motioned him forward.

"Go!"

Together, they sprinted to the far edge of the roof, where Agent Lynch waited, poised in the open hatch of the chopper, a hand stretched out to pull them aboard. B.A. reached him first and tumbled through the hatch. Hannibal followed, and no sooner had his boots left the rooftop than the chopper lifted and slid away, tilted on its side.

Lynch handed Hannibal a headset and waited for him to fit it on. Suddenly, the colonel could hear his voice over the deafening roar of the rotors that filled the back of the bird.

"Did you get the files?"

Hannibal grabbed the bag from B.A. and tossed it to Lynch.

"What about Al Fayed?"

"You have your files. Al Fayed is no longer a threat."

"He had his hands on these for years." He lifted the bag of documents. "You don't think he read them?"

"We completed our mission, Lynch. Either get us out of here or drop us back on that rooftop and we'll make our own way back to Baghdad."

Lynch gave him a level stare from behind his mirrored sunglasses and a tight, cynical smile. "Sit back and enjoy the ride, gentlemen. Captain Forrest?"

"Aye, Sir," the pilot responded, his voice coming clearly through the headset to Hannibal's ear.

"Take out the target."

"Aye, Sir."

The chopper abruptly heeled over on its side and swept around in a tight circle to point its nose directly at the insurgent compound.

"What the Hell are you doing?!" Hannibal demanded.

"Finishing the job."

"You son of a…"

Hannibal's last word was swept away in a rush of noise as the pilot fired two rockets directly at the building. Without waiting for the missiles to strike their target, Forrest took them skimming over the rooftops, away from the compound and toward the city center. Ignoring the modern buildings and the lovely river curving below them, Hannibal leaned out of the side hatch to stare in bleak fury at the fireball rising from between the flat rooftops of the slum they had just left.

Hannibal Smith had no sympathy for terrorists. Al Fayed and his goons had destroyed - probably killed - a man he had fought beside through countless battles and loved like a son. They had fully intended to use government secrets to attack U.S. soldiers or even the country itself. Hannibal didn't flinch at the thought of their deaths. But he was a soldier, not a butcher, and he only killed men for a purpose. This was slaughter, and it was wrong.

"Don't tell me you're feelin' sorry for the guy!" B.A. bellowed in his ear, obviously having followed Hannibal's sight line and read his thoughts.

Hannibal shook his head and pulled his head back into the chopper. With B.A.'s help, he slid the hatch door closed, cutting the howl of noise down to a muted roar. They both dropped into metal-framed seats and confronted their combined rescuer and tormentor. Lynch gave them his tight, cynical smile again and pulled off his headset so the pilot wouldn't overhear their half-shouted conversation.

" _Now_ you've completed the mission. And we're square, Colonel. All even."

"So we're on our own, now? No more Doc Finch? No free pass with the military authorities?"

Lynch gave him a distinctly sour look. "I agreed to protect your team and get them safely back to the States. I gave you my word."

"Yeah, and the last Agent Lynch who gave me his word framed us for treason and theft. Then he tried to kill us."

"Agent Burris does not reflect the attitudes of the CIA, any more than General Morrison reflects those of the U.S. Army."

Hannibal glared at him for one more long moment, then abruptly nodded his acceptance. "Fair enough."

He thought for another minute, weighing his options and his non-existent trust in Lynch, then decided that he had nothing to lose by asking. Leaning close to the other man so he wouldn't have to bellow, he said, "From one man of honor to another, I need a favor, Lynch."

Lynch cocked his head and regarded Hannibal with invisible eyes. "What kind of favor?"

"Take us back to the wadi."

"Where Peck was attacked? Why?"

"We left something there and I want to retrieve it."

"Be more specific."

"A body. A friend who tried to help us and died for it."

"The Rangers don't abandon their dead."

Hannibal couldn't tell if Lynch's tone carried accusation, sarcasm or sympathy, so he just waited.

"All right, Smith." Fitting on his headset again, he said calmly, "We're taking a little detour, Captain." Then turning back to Hannibal he added, "From one man of honor to another."

* * *

Face slept heavily, barely seeming to breathe. After two days of agony and mindless fear, this death-like quiet should have come as a relief, but Murdock found himself unsettled by it. He sat on Face's bed and watched him sleep with exhausted eyes, hoping for some sign of life and normalcy that would drive away his haunting visions.

Murdock could not look at Face without seeing that sun-drenched wadi and the broken figure sprawled in the bloody dust – the blank eyes opened onto nothing, staring at him in accusation; the blades driven through skin, muscle, bone and earth; the death in a familiar and much-loved face. He could not meet his friend's empty, one-eyed gaze without wanting to howl and weep. And sometimes, in his weakest moments, to curse death for not coming when it should. Face had lived, but for what? For this? Blind, crippled, unable to speak two words or understand even that much? Was this how his friend would want to live?

Then he would remember the last forty-eight hours, how Face had clung to his hand, struggling to say his name, or huddled trustingly against him while he held back the pain for a few precious minutes, and Murdock would curse himself for his doubts. Of course Face would want to live. He would want the chance to try again. That's who Face had always been and still was, Murdock was sure, under all the layers of damage and loss. He, Murdock, was weak and crazy. Face was not. He was the strongest person Murdock knew and somehow, even if it took a hundred years, he would find his way back.

As if in answer to his thoughts, Face stirred slightly. He took a longer breath, then sighed and settled more deeply into the pillow. It was the first time he had moved by even a hairsbreadth in hours, and it brought a weary, relieved smile to Murdock's face.

"Glad to see you're still with us, buddy," he murmured.

The door behind him opened, and Murdock twisted around to see the two doctors enter the room. Hadi looked lugubrious, as usual, but Finch had a spring in his step that cheered the pilot.

"Anything to report, Captain?" Finch asked as he crossed to the bed.

"Nothing new, Doc."

"We need to change those dressings. We'll try not to disturb him."

Murdock just nodded and watched in mingled fascination and disgust as they began peeling up crusted, sticky bandages. The wounds underneath, especially the sword-thrust through Face's shoulder, looked to be healing cleanly. The signs of infection had faded, and the wound no longer oozed around its stitches. The wound in his hand was messier, though it too seemed to be healing. And though Murdock couldn't bear to look at what was under the bandage on Face's eye, he heard the doctors making satisfied noises.

As Finch smoothed down the last piece of fresh tape, he said to Hadi, "We need to do the follow-up surgery in the next day. Two at the most."

Hadi frowned. "Are you sure that is necessary? He is still very weak. And he cannot see the damage to his face."

"It isn't purely cosmetic. The crushed bone is putting pressure on his brain, and the damage to his skull leaves him vulnerable to further injury. If we can rebuild his face while we're at it, so much the better."

"Can we not wait for Colonel Smith's return?"

"You don't have to wait for Hannibal," Murdock cut in. "He put me in charge of Face's care, and I say, do it."

"Murdock…" Hadi began, only to be rolled over by the anxious captain.

"I know what you're gonna say, Hadi. He can't see it, he doesn't care, it won't hurt him… But _I'll_ see it! And every time I do, I'll know that I let my friend down. First I didn't have his back when he needed me, then I didn't fix the damage when I could. I'm not gonna do that to him. I'm _not!_ "

Murdock's tirade was abruptly silenced when Face stirred beside him. All three men turned to stare at him for a moment, then headed for the door by unspoken agreement. Out in the hallway, with the door swinging shut behind them, Murdock continued in a lowered but fiercely certain tone.

"Do the surgery as soon as he's strong enough. Do whatever you've got to do. Just make him as whole and as healthy and as much like the old Faceman as you can. I'll take the heat from Hannibal, if it comes to that."

Finch nodded and turned a questioning glance on Hadi. "Will you assist me, Dr. Sajadhi?"

"Of course I will. I just wish that Hannibal…"

As if conjured by his words, a totally unexpected and utterly welcome voice called from the far end of the corridor, "Murdock!"

The pilot turned, with a cry of relief, to see Hannibal and B.A. bearing down on him. They looked filthy, exhausted and thoroughly disheveled – just as they ought to look upon successful completion of a mission – and blessedly unhurt. But the expression on Hannibal's face almost stopped Murdock's heart.

"Is it true?" the colonel demanded, as he sprinted up to the little group outside the door, his hunted eyes fixed intently on Murdock's face. "Is he alive? Is he…"

Hannibal broke off to clear the tightness from his throat, and Murdock stepped in quickly to end the suspense. "Yeah, he's awake. He woke up the night you left." Hannibal's fingers fastened on his arm with bruising force, and Murdock put up a hand to help steady him. "It's okay. He's really awake."

"Lynch told us," B.A. explained, "but we didn't know whether to believe 'im."

Hannibal abruptly pushed away from Murdock and turned toward the door to Face's room.

"Hannibal, wait," Murdock began, but the colonel cut him off, speaking over him to B.A. "You'll have your chance, Corporal, I promise. But I need some time with Face."

He was through the door before Murdock could do more than splutter, "But…"

B.A. rumbled softly behind him, "Let 'im be, Crazy Man."

"He shouldn't be in there alone. He doesn't know…"

"What? How to talk to a wounded soldier? C'mon, this is Hannibal we're talkin' about. Who knows better than he does?"

"Yeah." Murdock stared disconsolately at the shut door for another long moment, then muttered again, "Yeah, but I should be in there," and turned to confront the worried gaze of his teammate.

Hannibal moved restlessly around the tiny room, dodging chairs and equipment, unable to hold still. His gaze shifted constantly to the man sleeping so deeply in the bed, studying his pain-lined face, shorn hair and bandaged eye. He would halt for a moment to stare at his friend, then look away and begin moving again.

The third or fourth time his circuit of the room brought him up to the left side of the bed, he paused and reached down to touch Face's shoulder. His own expression was suddenly as drawn and tormented as the injured man's, and something perilously close to tears gleamed in his eyes before he blinked them away and returned to his pacing. When he spoke, he tossed the words over his shoulder without looking at the man in the bed.

"We completed the mission, Kid. The tracking signal worked like a charm. Led us straight to Al Fayed and the stolen files. Then Lynch blew the place to Hell and killed the lot of 'em. Maybe your friends from the wadi, too, if we're lucky."

He took another turn around the cramped space and added, his voice rough with strain, "I just thought you'd like to know that it's over."

He fell quiet again and continued to prowl the room, fighting the creeping dread that filled him at Face's continued silence. Hadi and Murdock both said that he was awake, recovering, but this deathly stillness was all too familiar to Hannibal. It frightened him. Finally, he forced himself to approach the bed again and stood at the foot, his hands braced on the metal frame.

From this angle, he could see both the heavy dressing that covered Face's left eye and the undamaged side of his face. He took a moment to absorb the purple shadows beneath his closed eye and strangely gaunt cheekbone, the furrow between his brows and the traces of tears on his cheek. Face looked exhausted, tormented and peaceful all at once, as if he had sunk into oblivion to escape an unbearable reality and was dreaming of pretty girls in expensive cars. The thought made Hannibal smile in spite of himself.

"It's been a Hell of ride, hasn't it, Kid? You and me. All the way from the harbor at Tangier to a military Court Martial. A Hell of a ride."

He let his head droop between his shoulders for a moment, then pulled himself upright again and continued, in a brisk tone, "You're the best soldier I ever had under my command. _And_ the worst. Sometimes I don't know why I put up with the crap you pull, then you perform a miracle and I remember. You're the best - a royal pain in my ass, but still the best."

He cocked his head to one side, regarding his friend wistfully. "Does it have to end here? You and me, the team, the missions… I don't want it to end, Face. I don't know what else to do with my life, and I can't do it without you. Murdock thinks you'll give us another miracle. Maybe he's right. He usually is, where you're concerned, and God knows, I hope he is this time…"

Unable to contain his restless energy, Hannibal began to pace again. He had used up his words and his patience. The only thing left to do was move. As he circled the room and came back around to face the bed, he glanced down at his friend and saw that his eye was open. Face had not stirred or made a sound, had given no sign that he was aware of Hannibal's presence, but his eye was definitely open. Hannibal drew up close to the bed, his clothing rustling, and the empty, hauntingly blue eye tracked vaguely toward him.

"Face?" Years of practice in dealing with wounded, shattered, dying men allowed him to keep his voice level and calm, even now, and he betrayed none of his excitement as he sank down in a chair to Face's right and leaned close to him. "Face? Can you hear me? It's Hannibal."

"Mm… Murd-hngh…"

"No, Hannibal."

A spasm of pain passed over his features, and Face clutched briefly at the blanket with his good left hand, his blank gaze skating away from the colonel.

"Relax, Kid. I got you."

When he reached across to clasp Face's left wrist, the injured man tensed and tried to pull away, obviously frightened of the stranger beside him. He tried to speak again, uttering a mangled version of Murdock's name, and looked wildly around as if expecting to find his friend waiting in the darkness.

"Calm down, Face. It's Hannibal. Hannibal. You know me, Kid." But even as he said it, Hannibal realized that it wasn't true. Face did not know him, and his words gave no comfort or reassurance.

It took the veteran commander no more than an instant to shift gears and accept this new, unpalatable reality. He wasted no time with denials or hand-wringing, but simply pulled his hand away to minimize the threat of the unknown and dropped his voice into a soothing murmur.

"All right, it's all right. I'll find Murdock for you…"

"Murd-dngh…"

"Yes, Murdock, he's right outside. Take it easy, Face."

Pain washed over the lieutenant's face again and made his breath sob in his throat. Hannibal clasped his hand once more and this time Face did not try to pull away. "It hurts, I know, but you can take it. I'll help you."

"M-murdock… Mm…"

"Shh. He's here. He's close. Murdock is close." With his free hand, he rested his palm against Face's bruised cheek. "See, you're not afraid of me. You know I won't hurt you. Let me help you, Face. Let me help."

When Murdock and B.A. stepped into the room ten minutes later, they found Hannibal seated by the bed, holding Face's hand and talking softly to him while Face drifted toward sleep. The colonel glanced up and and met Murdock's somber gaze.

"He's been asking for you, but I didn't want to leave him to come find you."

Murdock nodded and crossed to his usual chair on Face's left. As he sank into it, Face opened his eye and turned in his direction.

"Murd-dngh…"

"Yeah, it's me, buddy. Me and Hannibal and Bosco."

"Mm-murddh…" His eye drifted closed.

"Yeah." Murdock waited until his breathing slowed into sleep, then he commented softly, "You never quite get the whole name out, do you?"

"He knows you," Hannibal commented in a near whisper.

Murdock shook his head. "He knows one word - Murdock - and I answer when he says it."

"Why that word?" B.A. asked.

"It was the last thing he said before he… died. Before his mind went blank. Now it's all he's got left."

"But he trusts you," Hannibal said.

"After the last two days, yeah. He trusts me, Hadi, Doc Finch, all of us who got him through." The other two men tactfully ignored the tears thickening his voice. "But mostly me, 'cause I'm Murdock and I answer when he calls." Shooting a look at Hannibal, he added, "He didn't recognize you, did he?"

Hannibal shook his head.

"He'll remember, Boss Man. He'll come back, I know he will."

Neither Hannibal nor B.A. had an answer for that. They both looked dourly at the man sleeping in the bed, revolving their private thoughts behind drawn faces, until Murdock added, with utter conviction, "He has to."

* * *

B.A. found Hannibal in the hospital cafeteria. He sat at a corner table, hunched over a plate of food, picking at it with a fork and staring blankly at the empty chair across from him. The corporal poured a cup of coffee and dumped several spoonfuls of sugar into it. Then he approached his commander.

"Hey, Boss. I been lookin' all over for you."

Hannibal glanced up, stiffening in instinctive alarm. "Is something wrong?"

"No." B.A. dropped into the empty chair and nodded at the plate of food in front of Hannibal. "You shouldn't eat that, man. It'll give you the runs. Here." He slid the coffee across the table to him.

Hannibal quirked a humorless smile and reached for the mug. "And this'll eat the lining of my stomach." He raised the cup in a salute. "Thanks, B.A."

They sat in silence for a few minutes, while Hannibal sipped his coffee and B.A. pondered the various scars on the table top. Finally Hannibal mustered the strength to speak.

"Where's Murdock?"

"D'you really need to ask?" B.A. retorted.

"Haunting the surgery wing."

The corporal shook his head and smiled slightly. "Face's room. He's sittin' there like he always does, lookin' at the empty bed, waitin' for Faceman to be in it again."

"Hm. No word from Hadi yet on the surgery?"

B.A. just shook his head. After another quiet moment, he said, "I know that look, Hannibal. You're worried about somethin'. What is it?"

"Lynch. And Finch. Lynch and Finch..." Hannibal leaned back in the chair and covered his eyes with his hand for a moment, laughing softly to himself. "What a pair!"

"I thought you trusted Finch."

"I do." He straightened up and dropped his hand, his sour humor evaporating as quickly as it had come. "He gave us a miracle. And he kept our secret while he was doing it."

"So what's got you worried? We gave Lynch what he wants, we finished the mission, and we got Doc Finch on our side. You should be happy."

"Happy." Hannibal's expression was bleak. "Please, B.A., tell me what in this whole hellish mess should make me happy."

"Okay, sorry. Wrong choice of words. But it looks to me like we're finally safe."

"For the moment. But Finch wants to send Face back to the States, to his clinic in Virginia."

"That's good, isn't it? Face is getting stronger..."

"He's not strong enough to travel yet, but Finch thinks he will be soon."

"Then what's the problem?" B.A. demanded in exasperation.

"Finch and his plans. Lynch pulling strings to get us home. The pair of them _fixing_ things and getting us tangled up in their plots."

"I get it. You want to be the one who fixes it."

Hannibal looked startled, then he threw up his hand and said, laughing, " _Touché!_ But that's not quite it.

"Yes, I'd like to be the one who makes things right - for Face and for all of us - but I'm not too proud to accept help. It's the source of that help that's bothering me. I simply don't trust Lynch. And I don't like placing ourselves in his hands this way. What if he decides that it's in his best interests to turn us over to the Military authorities? What if he decides he likes having his own Special Forces unit at his disposal? He could use Face as a hostage to force us into God knows what... and how could we stop him? Once Face is settled in Finch's clinic, we can't just pull him out without damaging him in all kinds of ways. But as long as he's there, where Lynch can pressure him - and us through him - we're all vulnerable."

B.A. digested that for a long minute, then said, "But we need both of 'em to get Face safely back home."

"Exactly."

"So we're screwed."

"That's about the size of it."

B.A. sighed and slumped wearily in his chair. "I thought we were finally getting a break."

Hannibal smiled crookedly at him, the expression making him look more tired and sad than ever.

Once again, they fell quiet, intent on their own thoughts, but this time Hannibal's musing clearly focused on his corporal. He gazed intently at B.A., sipping his coffee, wondering what was going on behind that impassive face. Finally, he decided that the only way to find out was to ask.

"How are you doing, B.A.?"

The dark, mohawked head came up in surprise. "Me?"

"Yes, you. How're you holding up?"

"I'm okay, I guess." He shifted uncomfortably and let his eyes skate away from Hannibal's gaze. "I wish they'd hurry up and tell us how Faceman is doing. Not that it..." He abruptly bit off his words and ducked his head.

"Not that it matters?" Hannibal finished for him, softly.

B.A. hesitated, then nodded.

"Tell me, Big Man. Tell me what you're thinking."

"I think... I think they're hurtin' Faceman for no reason. They're putting him through these surgeries, repairing his hand, giving him a fake eye, rebuilding the bones in his face, and pretending that he cares, but it's really for us. For Murdock."

"Finch says it's necessary for his recovery. That it's relieving the pressure on his brain. And he is getting better. He said my name yesterday - or tried to - and he sat up for a good ten minutes."

"He's getting _stronger_ , like you said, but better? You're startin' to sound like Murdock."

"Is that such a bad thing? I didn't believe him when he said Face would wake up, but he was right. So now I'm trying to share a little of his hope."

B.A. scowled down at his folded hands. "You call it hope. I call it crazy. Murdock wants Face back so bad that he can't see the truth. He's even willing to make Face suffer, just so he can pretend for a while longer."

"Pretend?"

"That Face is comin' back to us."

"But you're sure he won't," Hannibal said quietly.

B.A. shook his head. "Face is gone, and he's takin' Murdock with 'im. That's what's killin' me about this. I see Murdock walkin' off the edge of a cliff, and I can't stop 'im. The only person he'll ever listen to when he's like this is Face, and Face can't help him. Hell, Face is the one pushing him over the edge!"

"Sounds like you're more worried about Murdock than Face."

"I guess I am. It's habit. Face never needs me; Murdock always does. I've just gotten used to letting Face do what Face is gonna do. Besides, Face... he isn't hurting the way Murdock is. He doesn't know or care how it's s'posed to be. He doesn't know what he's doing to his best friend."

Hannibal stared at him for a long, thoughtful moment, then he took a slug of his coffee and said, in a conversational tone, "You know what I think, Big Guy? You're so used to worrying about Murdock that you're missing the obvious."

"What's that?"

"Murdock isn't crazy. He isn't pretending that things are any different than they are. He sees all too clearly what's happened to Face, and he's coping with it better than either of us. Sure, he's hurting. His best friend is severely brain damaged and functioning at the level of a retarded three-year-old. He'd be crazy if he _weren't_ hurting. But he's holding it together for Face."

B.A. blinked at him in surprise. "You really believe that?"

"I know it. And I also know that Face is improving every day. He isn't getting his memory back, and he probably never will, but maybe that's for the best."

"I don't believe I'm hearin' this."

"Think about it. As long as he doesn't remember, he doesn't know how much he's lost. He just learns what he can and gets by with what he has."

"But if he doesn't remember _us…_ "

"He gets to know us again. As the friends who stand by him, look after him, love him… You do still love him, don't you? Even like this?"

"Course I do," B.A. answered roughly, dropping his eyes from Hannibal's piercing gaze. "He's family."

"Then he'll be fine. We all will, if we can just get back to the States without selling our souls to the Company."

"Hannibal…"

"What is it, B.A.?" When the corporal still hesitated, he urged, "Go on, say it. Whatever's on your mind, this is the time to say it, when Face and Murdock can't hear us."

"How can we still be a team - the A-Team - with Face like this and Murdock glued to his side? How can we do what we do?"

"I haven't figured that out, yet, but I will. I promise."

"But you think we can."

"I'm sure of it, as long as we remember that we _are_ a team and we act like it."

"You mean, I gotta stop tellin' myself that Face isn't really Face and start treatin' him like my teammate again."

Hannibal gave him half a smile. "Well, that would be a good start."

"Did he really say your name?"

The smile spread over his tired face. "Something like it. He's up to five or six words now, if you cut him some slack on pronunciation."

B.A. tried to smile, but it came out as a grimace. "Bosco ain't one of 'em."

"It will be, if you encourage him a little."

"It's hard. I don't know what to say. I mean, if it was really Face, I'd just…" He caught himself and shot Hannibal an embarrassed look. "Okay, it really is Face."

"So talk to him like you always do."

"Insult him and tell bad jokes?"

"If that's all you can come up with, but he doesn't laugh much."

"Yeah, I noticed," B.A. said glumly.

"Maybe you need to reintroduce him to the concept of humor. Make it your mission to get him laughing again."

"How do you make a retarded three-year-old laugh?"

Hannibal sobered instantly. "He'll learn, B.A."

"Yeah." B.A. pushed back his chair and stood up. Nodding to the plate of cold food in front of Hannibal, he said, "I'd chuck that, if I were you, and pick up somethin' from the falafel stand on the corner. I'm goin' upstairs to see if Murdock's heard anything."

With that, he strode out of the room.

* * *

B.A. took Hannibal's words to heart and tried his best to act more naturally around Face, but his teammate was never alone, and the big man found it hard to relax with Murdock or Hannibal or the doctors watching him. Another two weeks passed, Face recovered from his latest surgery, and life continued in the strange, stifling pattern it had assumed since their return from Tikrit. B.A. spent most of his time roaming the hospital corridors, looking for sick children to play with, or finding sources of food that didn't disrupt his digestion. He spent less time in Face's room than either of his teammates, though he made a point of speaking to him every time he did visit. Face hadn't yet attempted to say his name, but he seemed to recognize the deep voice as a friendly one and even smiled once or twice when B.A. approached him.

Dr. Finch had finally decided that Face was strong enough to travel, and Lynch had finagled them a private jet for the trip Stateside. B.A. didn't ask where he'd gotten it or how much trouble they would be in if someone figured out exactly who was aboard. That was for Hannibal to worry about. In fact, Hannibal and Murdock were both deep in conference with the Lynch Mob - as B.A. privately thought of the CIA Agent and doctors - which meant that Face was alone in his room.

Clutching a handful of fabric in one large hand, B.A. slipped through the door and let it close behind him, leaving him alone with Faceman for the first time since his injury. He paused just inside the door to get a good look at his friend.

Face was sitting up - lying against the raised head of the bed, to be exact - so that his empty gaze fixed on the wall, rather than the ceiling. He looked alert and showed no signs of pain, though the memory of what he had suffered over the last weeks was etched permanently into his face. At the sound of B.A.'s footsteps on the linoleum, he turned a vacant look on him but offered no greeting or sign of welcome.

"Hey, Faceman."

At the sound of the familiar voice, his expression softened into something like a smile.

"Did Hannibal tell you that we're goin' home today?" Face made no attempt to answer him, but B.A. hadn't expected any response, so he went on easily, "Well, not home, but closer than here. Virginia. To Doc Finch's clinic. Hannibal's workin' out the details now."

Stopping beside the bed, he said, with an attempt at humor, "I don't know 'bout you, buddy, but I'm done with this place. Bad weather, bad food, and no pretty nurses. Must be Hell for you."

He broke off and gazed down at his friend, at a loss. When Face did nothing but stare emptily at a point somewhere past B.A.'s shoulder, the corporal sighed and shuffled his feet.

"Okay. Well… I brought you somethin', man. A present." Unrolling the bundle in his hand, he held up a well-worn shirt made of soft, faded blue cotton, with a white peace sign on it. "You remember the day we met? You borrowed my favorite shirt and got gasoline all over it. Then Murdock lit you on fire." He rubbed his thumb over a brown mark on one long sleeve. "It took me a week to wash the smell of gas out of it, and the burn mark never went. But it's still my favorite shirt. And I want you to have it, Face, for luck and to remember us by. The day we became a team. I want you to wear it home."

Gently, so as not to startle his friend, he slid a hand behind Face's neck and pulled him away from the pillows that supported him, just enough that he could reach the ties of his hospital gown. "You don't wanna wear this thing to the airport anyway. It's got no style," he rumbled, as he opened the ties and pulled off the gown.

To the accompaniment of a running commentary that distracted Face from his actions, B.A. eased the shirt sleeve very gently over the various splints and bandages on his right side, then guided his left hand into the other sleeve and pulled the shirt over his head. Face winced when B.A. moved him but otherwise showed no sign of distress. B.A. settled him back against the pillows and straightened up to study his handiwork.

"You lost a lot of weight, man," he said, frowning at how the shirt, which had always been too big for Face's much slighter frame, now hung loose on him. "It figures, I guess, what with livin' on IVs and hospital food. When we get home, first thing we gotta do is get you some real food."

"Nngh…f-f-f…"

B.A. looked at him, startled, then broke out in a wide grin. "That's right. Can you say 'food'?"

"F… F-fff…"

"How 'bout 'Face'?"

"F-face."

"D'you know who that is?" Face just looked confused. B.A. chuckled. "Never mind, buddy. One step at a time."

The door swung open, and Hannibal and Murdock traipsed in, followed by Hadi pushing a wheelchair.

"Time to go," Hannibal announced. He halted when he caught sight of Face's shirt and smiled widely at B.A. "Good job, Corporal." Then, to Face he added, "You're looking more like yourself every day. Now all you need is some hair."

Face's confusion deepened, but B.A. so far forgot his nervousness around his brain-damaged friend that he ran an affectionate hand over his shorn head. "It's comin' back. If the docs would just stop draggin' you into surgery and choppin' it off again, you'd be back to normal by now."

"We must hurry if you are to reach the airport in time," Hadi interjected, his usually solemn manner more pronounced than ever at the thought of the risks his patient was running.

"It's a private flight. They'll wait for us. Okay, Face, let's get you into this chair."

"Does he have to sit up the whole way?" B.A. asked, frowning.

"Just to the airport. Finch has a stretcher for him on the plane, but we don't want to draw attention on the streets with an ambulance. He'll be fine. Won't you, Face?" Not waiting for an answer, Hannibal stripped the blankets back and reached to swing Face's feet off the side, but B.A. stopped him with a sharp gesture.

"I'll do it."

Gently, and with surprising ease, the big corporal scooped his friend up in his arms and transferred him to the wheelchair in one smooth move that barely jarred his various broken bones and wounds. Face gave one soft grunt of pain and was looking decidedly peaked, but he remained upright in the chair and when Murdock spoke to him, he smiled. Sitting up, he looked even thinner and more fragile than before, but also more like the Faceman they all knew. B.A. felt an unfamiliar tightness in his throat when he looked at him, and he quickly turned away to regain control of himself.

"Let's go," Hannibal said.

B.A. gave the wheelchair a shove toward the door. As he maneuvered it out of the room, he sent up a silent prayer that he would never see this room, this hospital or this godforsaken country again as long as he lived.

 _To be continued…_


	2. Part 2: Virginia

_**Author's Note:**_ Face's dialog in this section reads a bit awkwardly. It looks as if he's stuttering, but that's not right. It should sound as if he has aphasia, like a stroke victim, but I couldn't figure out how to represent that sound in type. So when you're reading it, try to keep that in mind.

Enjoy!  
\- Chevy

 _ **Part Two: Virginia**_

Spring was one of the nicest seasons in Washington, DC and the only time of year that Sosa didn't mind hanging out on the Mall. This early in the year, the air was pleasantly crisp, with none of the swamp-like humidity of Summer. She sat on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, sipping her coffee and watching the breeze ruffle the surface of the reflecting pool, making the image of the Washington Monument shiver and break. As usual, the place was mobbed with tourists, but her unsmiling face behind the mirrored sunglasses tended to warn them away, and they gave her a wide berth.

Another figure, equally upright and vaguely threatening in its black overcoat, paced up the steps toward her and stopped one stair down from her seat. She gazed up at Lynch's face, wondering yet again what he was thinking, then decided that she didn't care. He'd agreed to meet her, and that was all that mattered to her.

"Agent Lynch."

"Captain Sosa. It is still Captain, isn't it?"

Sosa glanced down at her own shoulder, realizing that her coat covered her insignia. "You thought I'd be busted down to First Lieutenant again?"

"I thought you'd earn yourself a gold oak leaf, after Iraq."

She gave a noncommittal grunt and turned to stare at the impressive spike of the Monument. Lynch eyed her speculatively from behind his dark lenses.

"Is that what this is about? Iraq?"

"I want your help."

"I gave you the documents, let you take them back to your superiors and claim all the credit. What further help do you expect?"

"You _gave_ them to me?" she retorted sardonically. "I was recalled by the Director and ordered to bring the documents. Neither one of us had any choice in the matter, or I would gladly have stayed in Baghdad to see the mission through and let you _claim all the credit_."

"Be grateful I stayed. If I hadn't, the A-Team would still be stranded in Iraq, looking for a way home that didn't land them in Leavenworth."

"That's what I want your help with."

"Leavenworth?"

She smirked at his deliberate obtuseness and said, patiently, "Keeping the A-Team out of prison."

"Now, why would you think I give a damn about that?"

"Because you got them safely home, so you obviously don't think they _belong_ in prison."

"I held up my end of the deal with Smith. That's all."

"I don't believe you." She craned her neck to stare directly up at him and slid off her glasses so she could see him more clearly. "I think you went above and beyond the agreed price for Smith's help, because you care what happens to them."

Lynch gazed off into the distance, his face impassive. "What a vivid imagination you have."

"Spare me, Lynch. You may come across as a cold-blooded bastard, but you have a conscience or you wouldn't risk your life doing the work you do. I get it. And I get how hard it is to admit that you have a soft spot for anyone, especially a pack of lunatics like the A-Team. But you do, and I've seen it, and now I'm counting on you to act on it. Again."

"What do you have in mind?"

"A pardon."

That startled him out of his indifferent pose and brought his head around with a snap. "A pardon? Are you _insane?_ "

"I have a meeting with Director McCready in an hour, and I want you there as back up. We can catch the subway and be at the Pentagon in plenty of time."

"He'll never agree. He'd rather spend the rest of his life chasing his tail than admit he was wrong and let Smith go free."

She smiled her hard, calculating smile and cocked her head at him. "Trust me, I know what I'm doing."

"I sincerely doubt that."

"But you'll come anyway, won't you?"

"Hm. Only so I can watch you crash and burn."

Sosa got to her feet and favored him with another hard smile. "I'll brief you on the way."

Director McCready sat behind his large, mahogany desk, staring up at Captain Sosa with disbelief and anger warring in his face. She stood in the middle of the floor, her head up and her eyes fixed on the portrait of Ulysses S. Grant that hung on the wall behind him, hands clasped behind her back, betraying nothing and showing no sign of discomfiture under his fulminating glare.

"Have you completely lost your mind, Captain?"

"No, sir."

"You want me to obtain a Presidential Pardon for a man who's spent two years as a Federal fugitive, thumbing his nose at the Military authorities and the U.S. government, simply because he was injured during an illegal and unsanctioned operation in Iraq?"

"Yes, sir."

Lynch, who sat in a chair that he'd carefully pulled out of McCready's direct sight lines, offered mildly, "Strictly speaking, Director, the operation was neither illegal nor unsanctioned. Both the DOD and my superiors in Langley approved it, and the Agency was aware of the A-Team's involvement."

"This office was _not_ , however, and I would never have signed off on the mission if I'd known what you planned."

"Be that as it may, sir," Sosa interjected in her best wooden voice, "they were working for us. We sent them into combat, to do a job that we couldn't do ourselves, and we have to take some responsibility for the outcome."

"The only responsibility I recognize is that of upholding the law," McCready snapped. "Templeton Peck is a wanted man. He belongs in a Military prison. And if you know where he and the rest of the A-Team are, it's your duty to inform me."

"So you can arrest them?"

"Obviously so I can arrest them! What do you think this is? A game?"

"No, sir. I'm fully aware of the consequences of my actions."

"Are you? Do you realize that you could end up in prison _with_ them?"

"Yes, sir, but…" She broke off and hazarded a quick look at her superior officer.

"But what, Captain?" he asked, his eyes narrowing dangerously.

"Have _you_ considered the consequences of _your_ actions? The A-Team have become popular heroes, media darlings. If you arrest Peck, it will be national news."

"We can survive the bad press."

"Will you feel the same way when his picture is plastered on every website, magazine cover and TV screen in the civilized world?"

"That's nothing new. And the DOD does not make decisions based on public opinion or media pressure. If we did, we would have pardoned the entire A-Team years ago."

"What do we base our decisions on, then, sir?" she retorted, a hint of derision creeping into her voice. "Expediency? Pride? An inability to admit that we're wrong?"

"You're on very thin ice at the moment, Captain."

"With all due respect, sir, so are you."

"That's enough!" McCready was on his feet, every muscle taut with anger. "This meeting is over, and you have exactly twenty-four hours to surrender the location of the A-Team, or I'll have your Captain's bars! Do you understand me?"

"What I understand, sir, is that you're about to make a complete ass of yourself!" Sosa shot back, her anger rising to match the Director's and her caution flying out the window. "If you don't give a damn about what's _right_ , then maybe you'll care about your own reputation! Because I can promise you, that if you insist on arresting Peck, you'll humiliate yourself and this department far more thoroughly than Smith ever could with his Robin Hood heroics!"

"Are you threatening me, _Captain?!_ "

"No, _sir_ , I'm simply stating a fact, _sir!_ "

"And how, exactly, does arresting a fugitive from military justice become a humiliation for me or the department? Because he was wounded in Iraq?" McCready's tone dripped with sarcasm. "In case you missed it, Captain, a lot of men were wounded and killed in that godforsaken hole, and the American public is sick of hearing about it. They may think of Peck as a hero now, but they'll forget him soon enough and move on to some other pet cause."

"Not when they see what happened to him. Not when they learn that the U.S. Army threw a blind, brain-damaged man into prison, after he sacrificed everything in an attempt to save this country from its own stupidity and failure!"

McCready just stared at her in open-mouthed shock as she went on, furiously, "Morrison betrayed this country! He put every man and woman in uniform - possibly every American citizen - at risk so that he could steal billions of dollars! A decorated General in the Army! But did the Army fix it? No! We had to bring in the A-Team to do it, men we'd wrongly accused of theft and murder, arrested, lost, chased all over the world for two years… Now we're asking them to clean up our mess!"

McCready finally found his voice and interjected, " _You_ asked them, without clearance from this department!"

"Are you telling me you're sorry we did? They completed the mission, retrieved the files and neutralized the terrorists."

Lynch shot her an ironic look at that but did not interrupt. In fact, he looked highly interested in her tirade.

"Now you want to thank them for their efforts by pulling Peck out of a hospital and throwing him in a prison cell. The man doesn't even remember his own _name_ , much less the crime he's being punished for, and you call that justice? Upholding the law?"

"Yes."

"I call it wrong and cruel. But more to the point, I call it stupid."

"We're back to the media again, I take it."

"We are."

"You're assuming that the media will even learn about Peck's misadventures in Iraq…"

"They will, sir. I can guarantee it."

"Another threat, Captain?" he asked, his tone dangerously soft.

"No, sir, another fact. We live in the information age. Nothing is private, nothing secure. And nothing escapes the notice of the press for long, especially when it involves a popular and… shall we say _attractive_ figure like Peck."

"This mission is Top Secret."

"So were our global surveillance programs, before Edward Snowden got hold of them," said Lynch in a conversational tone.

McCready turned on him and demanded, "What's your part in this, Agent Lynch? And why are you here?"

"I set up the mission and made the decision to involve the A-Team."

"So this ridiculous mess is your fault."

Lynch smiled fractionally. "If you choose to see it that way, yes. It's also my _fault_ that you have your Top Secret documents back and one less terrorist organization to deal with."

"Hm. Then you agree with Captain Sosa that we should allow Peck to walk off into the sunset, a free man?"

"I would hardly call it walking off into the sunset. He'll most likely spend the rest of his life in an institution of some kind, under the care of medical professionals."

"You really expect me to believe that."

Lynch shrugged. "Go see for yourself. Once you've spoken to Peck, you can decide whether it's worth your while to arrest him."

"Or you can tell me where he is and I can arrest him now, without wasting my time on a chat."

The marginal smile appeared again. "Which brings us back, yet again, to the media."

McCready glared sourly at both of them, feeling the trap closing on him and clearly resenting it. "I can understand why Sosa is so anxious to help Peck. She's always been susceptible to his charms. But why you, Lynch? What's your stake in this?"

"Perhaps I want to right a wrong. Perhaps I feel responsible, in some way, for what happened to Peck. Or perhaps I simply don't see the point in making him or anyone else suffer for no reason."

"No reason." McCready shook his head. "You call it 'no reason' but I call it justice. Upholding the law. Protecting the honor of the military and this department."

"You won't, if you spend a little time with Peck. Trust me, Director. Just talk to him. If you still want to arrest him after that, then by all means, try."

That brought a grunt of humorless laughter from McCready. He sat behind his desk, shading his eyes with one hand, turning over their words in his mind for more than a minute. Both Sosa and Lynch bore the silence with the unimpaired calm of much discipline and experience. Finally, McCready lifted his head and fixed a weary gaze on them.

"All right. Tell me where to find Peck, and I'll pay him a visit. Assess the situation for myself."

"Thank you, sir," Sosa said.

"Don't thank me yet. I haven't agreed to anything, and I may still arrest the son of a bitch - or at the very least let him remain an at-large fugitive. But I'll hold off on a decision until I've seen him."

"Understood, sir."

"Dismissed, Captain. And take your Company friend with you."

Sosa snapped out a salute then headed for the door with Lynch just behind her. "I'll send you the address and phone number of the clinic where Peck is being treated," she said, as she whisked out the door.

"But not too quickly, I assume," Lynch murmured in her ear.

"Certainly not until I've warned Doctor Finch."

Lynch smiled and fell into step beside her, as she strode down the wood-paneled corridor. "Very nice work, Captain. I must admit, I never thought you'd pull it off."

"I wouldn't have without your help." She shot a measuring glance at him and asked, "Why _did_ you help?"

"As I told your Director, I want to right a wrong. Or perhaps you were right the first time and I have a soft spot for the A-Team."

"Well, whatever the reason, you did a good thing in there, and I'm grateful."

His eyes slid over to her and his smile twisted into smugness. "Good. Remember that."

* * *

Finch hung up the phone and looked at the row of faces confronting him. "That was McCready's office. He'll be here at two o'clock."

"Which means we'd better clear out now," Hannibal said. "He may already have men in place, watching the building."

"He may. But Captain Sosa was adamant that he isn't a threat."

Hannibal smirked humorlessly. "This is the same woman who trusted Lynch."

"And who believed we were working with Pike," B.A. cut in.

"I don't have much faith in her judgment."

"She did convince McCready to meet with me. The fact that he's even considering a pardon for Face is a major step, and one we owe entirely to her efforts."

"If he means it. If he's willing to listen at all and not here solely for recon."

"We'll find out soon enough. In the meantime, I suggest that you make yourselves scarce. And check Face's room to be sure you don't leave any incriminating evidence behind you."

"Yeah." Hannibal pushed himself wearily out of his chair and headed for the door, the others trailing behind him. "Be careful what you say to this guy, Doc. He's a slippery bastard, more interested in covering his ass than doing the right thing." Pausing in the doorway, he turned back to add, earnestly, "He could have let us go. After we recovered the plates, exposed Morrison's treachery and saved the country billions of dollars, he could have admitted he was wrong and let us go. Instead, he tried to lock us up again because he didn't want to deal with the paperwork. That's the man you're dealing with here, the man Sosa handed you to on a silver platter. Keep that in mind when you meet him. And when you get the urge to defend Sosa."

"Understood," Finch replied blandly.

"Good luck." He didn't add the threat that they all knew was poised on the tip of his tongue - that Face's safety and welfare were in his hands, and he would be held responsible for anything that happened to him - because he didn't need to. They all knew how things stood, and Finch had earned enough respect that the colonel didn't want to strong-arm him unnecessarily. But the unsaid words hung in the air between them as the team filed out of the office and let the door swing shut behind them.

Murdock sprinted ahead of the others to reach Face's room and slid his ID card into the lock to open it. Face wasn't in the room, but to Murdock's experienced eye, it was clear that he'd just left. The window stood wide open, filling the room with sunlight, the smell of cut grass and bird song - just the way Face liked it - and the bed pushed directly under it was unmade. The clothes he'd slept in were crumpled on the other bed, along with a scattering of magazines Murdock had left there. And his breakfast tray still stood on the rolling table, nearly untouched as usual.

Letting the door swing shut again, Murdock checked his watch and started down the hallway, mentally reviewing Face's schedule as he went. He quickly located Face in a little room that the nurses grandly referred to as The Library but that was really an oversized office. It had a few book shelves in it and a handful of comfortable chairs, with a coffee maker steaming and burbling in the background. Face was hard at work with his speech therapist when Murdock slipped in. Sylvia, the therapist, glanced up and smiled, but Face was concentrating and didn't hear him.

Murdock stopped by his chair to listen as he struggled to form a new word.

"L-ligh-ngh. L-lii-."

"Try again," Sylvia urged. "Light."

"L-l-ligh-t."

"Very good." She suddenly switched on a halogen lamp that stood on the table between them and angled it to direct the beam of light into Face's right eye. "What is that, Face?"

"L-light."

"Where is it? Can you point to it?"

He obediently lifted his right hand toward the lamp, at the same time angling his head so he seemed to be looking at it out of the corner of his eye. Murdock knew that he could still see light and shadow in one part of his right eye, and that he was trying to bring the lamp into focus.

"L-light," he said again, more clearly than before.

"Good." She switched off the lamp. "What is that?"

Face's expression changed, going faintly sad, and he awkwardly tried to reach for the missing light with the two fingers on his hand that still worked.

"What is it, Face? We just learned the word."

"D-dark?" he offered, hesitantly.

"That's right. Dark." She switched on the lamp again.

"Light," Face said, understanding now what was required of him.

She switched it off.

"Dark."

"That's very good, Face. Excellent." She paused to scribble some notes on the pad that lay on the table in front of her, and Murdock took the opportunity to interrupt.

"Hey, Face," he said.

Face's head came around sharply, his blank gaze sliding over his friend, and he smiled beatifically. "Murdock!"

"Yeah, it's me," the pilot replied, marveling as he always did at how happy Face was to see him. It didn't matter how many times in a day Murdock spoke to him, announcing his presence, Face always greeted him the same way - with a blindingly beautiful smile and a cry of welcome. It eased some of Murdock's gnawing guilt to see that Face was happy here, open and trusting and eager to please. But at the same time, it underscored just how much his friend had changed. Murdock might love this blank-eyed, smiling stranger, he might long to protect him, but he didn't know him. He didn't look at him and see the Faceman he had known and fought beside and called his friend for so many years.

Brushing off his sudden melancholy, Murdock dropped his hand to Face's shoulder and gave it an affectionate shake. He never touched Face until the other man had recognized him, as one of the few real fears Face still evinced was being touched without warning.

"Learning some new words?" he asked, as he moved to the front of Face's chair and perched on the edge of the table.

"L-light," Face said happily, stumbling slightly over the unfamiliar word again.

"That's a good one. Hey, buddy, I gotta talk to you for a minute. Sorry, Syl," he tossed over his shoulder to the therapist, "I didn't mean to interrupt, but it's kinda important."

She gestured for him to continue and kept jotting notes.

"We have to leave the clinic for a while. Not you. Me, Hannibal and Bosco. You got a special visitor coming, and we can't be here."

This was clearly too much for Face to grasp. He gave Murdock a vague smile but made no attempt to answer him.

"It's nothin' for you to worry about. I just want you to know that we'll be back as soon as we can. And until then, you'll be fine with Syl and George and Doc Finch and everybody. Okay?"

"Okay," Face said, obediently.

"Take care of yourself, buddy." He stood but hesitated to leave, unwilling to walk away and leave Face to the questionable mercies of Director McCready. He understood what they had to gain, if everything went according to plan, but he had little faith that it would and was angry that Sosa, Lynch and even Hannibal were willing to play games with Face's life like this.

Face, completely unaware of the tumult he was causing, just gazed emptily up at him and smiled. Murdock couldn't help it. He had to smile back. Running a hand over Face's short hair, he gave his head a slight shake and murmured, again, "Take care of yourself. We'll be back."

By the time the long, black car pulled up in front of the clinic, the A-Team was safely gone. Finch had a trusted member of his staff on the lookout for McCready, so he had plenty of warning before the Director strode into the building. He took a quick detour past the PT gym on his way to his office, just to make sure that Face was calm and working well, and was relieved to see him laughing with George.

Finch had debated how best to present Face to the Director, how to show him at his weakest and most helpless. He agreed with Sosa that McCready would never agree to pardon Face if he had any inkling that the former Ranger might regain his mental faculties or learn to function in the outside world. Finch wanted to improve Face's odds any way he could, but in the end, he decided that he couldn't control either Face's behavior or the Director's reaction to it. He would simply have to let events play out as they would. So he gave up any thought of manipulating the situation and focused on getting them all through it unscathed.

Leaving Face and George to continue their exercises in peace, he hurried to his office and arrived just as the phone buzzed for his attention. A minute later, his assistant ushered Director McCready into the room. McCready was a smallish, compact man with a handsome face that had grown lined and hard over years of managing crises and exerting authority. He wore a charcoal gray, pinstriped suit and horn-rimmed glasses, and the gaze he fixed on the doctor as he shook his hand was decidedly suspicious.

"Please sit down, Director McCready," Finch said in his mildest, most disarming tone. As McCready settled into the offered chair, he asked, "What can I do for you?"

McCready replied, without preamble, "You can bring me Templeton Peck."

"Why? So you can arrest him?"

"If I'd wanted to arrest him, would I have come in here alone?" McCready was clearly impatient, in the manner of men who are used to giving orders rather than asking favors, and he added sourly, "Not that I have to explain myself to you. Peck is a federal fugitive. By law, he should be in shackles right now, not getting massages and sponge baths in some resort clinic."

Finch merely smiled, refusing to rise to the bait. "I'm sure you did your research before you came here today, Director, so you know what kind of work we do. I'm equally sure that you don't mean to insult our patients - most of them combat veterans wounded in the service of their country - by reducing their daily struggles to massages and sponge baths."

"Do you consider Peck a combat veteran, wounded in the service of his country?"

"Of course."

"Even though he's a criminal and a fugitive, who was in Iraq without the knowledge of the D.O.D., engaged in an unsanctioned military action?"

"I'm not interested in the intricacies of military politics. I've served in the U.S. Army Medical Corps most of my adult life, and I'm accustomed to following orders, but I'm also a doctor, dedicated to treating the sick and wounded. When Agent Lynch came to me with Peck's medical records and asked me to treat him, I didn't ask who had sanctioned his actions. I simply did my best to save his life, because that's what I do."

"And now?"

"Now, I'm finishing the job. Peck's life is not in danger, but his brain is severely damaged and he faces a very long, very difficult recovery…"

"So he _will_ recover!" McCready cut in, a hint of triumph in his voice.

"To some extent, he already has. My job is to see that he recovers as far as possible, given his physical limitations."

"How far will that be?"

"I can't give you a definite answer."

"Sounds like a dodge, to me."

Finch cocked his head to one side, regarding the other man with a touch of amusement. "Neurological medicine is not an exact science. We patch together bodies, but we cannot patch together brains. And we can never predict, with absolute certainty, how far they will heal themselves."

"I thought you were an expert in this field."

"I am. That's why I know my own limitations and don't make pronouncements I can't back up with results."

"But you can make educated guesses."

"I can."

"So give me an educated guess. How far will Peck's brain heal?"

Finch made a steeple of his fingers and rested them against his lips. "His sight and his memory are gone. Permanently. He can reason at a very rudimentary level, which means that he can learn new skills, if he works hard enough at them to get them set in his longterm memory. But his storage capacity is limited, so there's a hard limit to how much he can learn."

"What kind of skills are we talking about?"

"Identifying common objects. Moving through a familiar space. Feeding himself."

"Wait…" McCready looked startled. "Peck can't feed himself?"

"He can, now. It's difficult for him, but he'd rather spill most of his food himself than have it fed to him by someone else." The doctor suddenly smiled with real affection. "He can be surprisingly stubborn."

McCready frowned. "I thought Sosa was exaggerating. It sounded ridiculous. Peck not knowing his own name, not being able to…" His words faded off into confusion.

"He's improved since she saw him in Baghdad. He knows his own name now, and a few others. But he speaks only with extreme effort, and it's hard to say how much he understands of what you say to him."

"And is this as good as it gets?"

"He'll improve incrementally, I think. He's still in the very early stages of recovery, and there's a lot he can learn to do, in time."

"But his brain… his personality…"

"You're asking if he'll ever become the Templeton Peck he was before his injury? No. That man died in Iraq."

For the first time since he had entered the building, the Director looked more thoughtful than hostile. He stared at Finch for a long, brooding moment, then said, "You understand that I can't simply take your word for this. I'll have to see for myself."

"Of course." Finch rose to his feet and gestured toward the door. "He's in Physical Therapy now. We can observe a bit of his routine."

As he pushed himself out of his chair, McCready said, "I want to speak with him."

"You're welcome to try. You may find it frustrating."

McCready just grunted and followed Finch out of the office.

They went down a short corridor, lined with closed doors, then around a corner and down another hallway. Finally they stopped at a metal door with a window set in it. A plaque on the wall read: _Physical Therapy West. Quiet Please._ McCready stepped up beside Finch to peer in the window.

The room inside was a standard rehab gym, cleaner and more pleasant than most but utterly familiar. Three or four pairs of people - a nurse and a patient in each - were working on the floor equipment. The patients looked as happy as could reasonably be expected, given their condition, and the nurses were unfailingly patient. McCready recognized at a glance a well-run, caring, professional facility with top-notch staff. He also recognized that both the staff and the patients were predominantly soldiers, which helped to explain the obvious understanding that flourished between them.

Two men sat at a table near the door. The nurse was an ex-Marine, broad-shouldered, tall and muscular, with a tattoo showing beneath the short sleeve of his crisp, white tunic. The man with him was smaller, slender to the point of gauntness, with purple shadows visible beneath his cheekbones and his clothes hanging loose on his thin frame. He had a square of white gauze taped over his left eye, and from his close vantage point, McCready could see a wicked scar on his left temple. His painfully short, unevenly cut hair only served to emphasize his hollow cheeks and drawn expression.

The patient at the table was trying to pick up a plastic cup with his right hand. His index and middle fingers were paralyzed, and he obviously couldn't see the cup, so his efforts were fruitless and the cup repeatedly skittered onto the floor when he reached for it. McCready watched this for a moment, feeling frustrated for the injured man. He was about to demand that Finch stop wasting time and produce Peck, when the nurse said something to his companion and the patient suddenly laughed.

In that instant, his face was totally transformed, and McCready felt his jaw sag open in surprise. It was Peck. That shadowed ghost of a man was Templeton Peck. And for that one, shocking moment, he wasn't a ghost, he was beautiful and brilliant and alive again. Then the smile died, and it seemed as though the light in the room died with it.

Swallowing hard, the Director turned to Finch and rasped out, "What happened to him?"

"Captain Sosa didn't tell you?"

"I didn't believe her. But that… really is Peck."

"Yes. What's left of him. His captors drove blades through his shoulder and hand to immobilize him, then they crushed his skull. This is the result."

"That scar…"

"It took four surgeries to stop the bleeding in his brain and to reconstruct his face, temple and eye socket. He's got a prosthetic blank in the socket now. We'll add the cosmetic piece when he's able to tolerate another surgery. In the meantime, we keep it covered because the blank upsets the other patients."

"But he can't see it."

"No, he's nearly completely blind. His right eye can still detect light, but only minimally, and he'll probably lose that over time."

"Jesus," McCready muttered.

"It isn't pretty, is it?"

"I didn't even recognize him until he smiled."

Finch chuckled. "That smile would stop traffic. And it wreaks havoc on staff discipline."

"You like him, don't you?"

"I do."

"But you don't know the real Templeton Peck, the man he was before."

"This is the only Face I know, but this _is_ the real Face. I told you, the other man died in Iraq. Maybe now you believe me."

"I believe he's changed, but…"

"You need to talk to him to be sure." McCready nodded, his face grim once more. "Very well."

Finch keyed open the door with his ID card and stuck his head into the room. "Excuse me, George, would you bring Face to the small conference room?"

The nurse put a hand on Face's arm to still his latest move to grab the cup and asked, "Now, or when we're finished?"

"Now, please."

"Sure, Doc. Be right there."

Finch let the door swing closed and gestured for McCready to precede him down the hallway. "We'll use the conference room instead of my office. It has windows and lots of natural light. Face will be more relaxed there."

They retraced their steps to a door just a few yards away from Finch's office. The plaque beside this one identified it as Conference Room 1. Again, Finch used his ID card to open it, causing McCready to raise his eyebrows.

"Do you keep Top Secret files in there?"

Finch pushed the door open to reveal a small, bright room dominated by a round table and a handful of leather chairs. "The electronic locks are to protect our patients. All of them are impaired in some significant way. If they got into the wrong room, they could hurt themselves, panic, grow violent. Or we could simply lose them."

"Hm."

McCready glanced down the hallway and saw two figures approaching, moving slowly. Next to George's formidable bulk, Face looked even smaller and more fragile than before. He leaned heavily on the nurse's arm and dragged his right leg when he walked. His right arm hung at an awkward angle, and his blue T-shirt looked about three sizes too big for him.

The Director watched him for a few seconds then ducked into the conference room to avoid the uncomfortable sight. He was finding it increasingly difficult to maintain his suspicions or hold himself aloof. He kept replaying the scene on the L.A. docks two years ago, when Peck and the rest of the Team had blown up a ship, killed a dozen men, and orchestrated the exposure of a rogue CIA Agent. He could still see that man vividly - all strength, assurance and excitement, afire with the joy of battle, radiating a sense of barely-controlled danger - and he couldn't decide which Templeton Peck was real and which an illusion.

George guided his charge into the conference room and into a chair beside the floor-to-ceiling window. Face tilted his head to catch the light and smiled his thanks to the big nurse. Again, for a moment, McCready felt as if a bright light had been switched on in the room, then abruptly switched off.

"Do you need me to stay, Doc?" George asked.

Finch settled into a chair between Face and McCready. "No, I'll buzz you."

"Right. Take care, Face. I'll see you soon."

That earned him another slight smile, which he returned as he left the room.

"Does everyone here call him Face?" McCready asked, ignoring the man sitting across from him.

"That's his name. Face, this is Director McCready. He's come to visit you."

Face looked doubtful but not actively upset. "I don— don't nnhg…"

"No, you don't know him. He wants to talk to you."

"Talk."

"Yes, talk," McCready cut in impatiently. "I just want to ask you some questions, Peck…"

"Face," Finch murmured.

"There's nothing to be afraid of."

Face clearly didn't know what to say to this, so he sat gazing blankly at McCready, a slight frown between his brows.

"Do you recognize my name? Have you heard it before?"

"N-nname…"

"McCready. Have you heard it?"

"Nnngh…"

"Maybe your friends have said it. Maybe you remember, from before."

"F-friends." Face grabbed hold of a word he recognized and repeated it. "Friends."

"You have friends, don't you?"

This time, he got a direct answer. Face nodded and said, firmly, "Have f-f-friends."

"Where are they? Where are your friends?"

Face shot a helpless look in Finch's direction and the doctor came to his rescue.

"Give him a name. Ask about a specific person."

"Smith. Where's Smith? Is he here in the clinic?" Face just looked baffled, so he tried again. "What about Baracus or Murdock?"

"Murdock." Face brightened, a smile wiping the anxiety from his expression. "M-my friend."

"Where is Murdock?" McCready asked, trying to keep the note of triumph from his voice.

"G-go… Murdock go." Face thought hard about that for a moment then corrected himself. "Gone."

"Where did he go?"

"I d-don't… do-nngh…"

"He's still working on stringing three words together," Finch explained quietly. "That means 'I don't know'."

"Murdock is your friend," McCready said, trying to get the conversation back on solid ground.

"Y-y-y…"

"You talk to Murdock."

"T-talk."

"When did you last talk to Murdock?"

Once again, he got only blank silence in response, and once again, Finch stepped into the breach.

"He has difficulty with time. Both because he can't see it passing and because the concept is a little beyond him."

McCready hesitated, stymied, then changed tacks. "Do you remember anything before you came here, to the clinic?"

"R-rmemmb…"

"That's right, remember. Do you remember Baghdad? Iraq?"

"Re-memm…" Face said, trying very hard to pronounce the syllables clearly. "Re-mem-b… words. L-learn words."

"Words?"

"New w-words."

"What new words?"

"L-light."

"Do you know what light is?"

Face waved vaguely in the direction of the window, smiled his incandescent smile, and said happily, "L-ligh-t!"

"What else do you remember? People? Places?"

This strange, halting, mostly one-sided conversation went on for several minutes. McCready tried to pry any single piece of useful information out of Face, while Face struggled to follow what he was saying. Both men grew increasingly frustrated, though Finch noticed that McCready's manner softened over time. He seemed to accept that Face genuinely _wanted_ to be helpful but could neither understand him nor communicate effectively with him. But sheer stubbornness kept them both at it.

Finally, when Face began to show signs of increasing stress, Finch decided it was time to end the interview. He cleared his throat for attention and said, mildly but with unmistakeable finality, "I think Face has had enough, Director."

McCready looked from the bland doctor to his agitated patient, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. It was a knee-jerk reaction, when anyone tried to take the initiative away from him, to assume that they had a hidden agenda. Even now, when he had all but conceded that Peck was permanently and devastatingly impaired, the instant the doctor stepped in to deflect his questions, he instinctively reacted with hostility. And the fact that Finch seemed to know exactly what he was thinking only made it worse. He was suddenly, absolutely convinced that he was being played for a fool.

He glared at both of them and said nothing, until Finch reached for the telephone to summon his behemoth minion. Then he blurted out, "Wait."

Finch paused with his hand above the receiver and looked a polite question at him.

"Show me what's under that bandage."

The doctor lowered his hand. "You want to see his eye?"

"It's healed, isn't it? You just cover it to spare the other patients?" McCready was suddenly up out of his chair and around the table before either of the other men could react. "And let's have a look at that hand, while we're at it."

He snatched at Face's right wrist, pulling the hand up where he could see it and wrenching the injured shoulder in the process. At Face's cry of pain, he glanced, frowning, at the shoulder and twitched aside his shirt to study the ugly scar that adorned it.

Face gave a wordless cry of protest, retreating into his chair to avoid the unwelcome touch, at the same moment that Finch snapped, "Director! Please!"

But McCready was in the grip of a terrible certainty that he was being fooled, that he was on the verge of exposing a fraud, and he registered nothing else. Not Face's obvious distress or Finch's anger. Not the pain in the injured man's exposed eye or the way he struggled to free himself from the stranger's clasp. McCready probed the scar in the middle of Face's palm, drawing a sob of pain from him, then tried to force his first and middle fingers to bend. "Nngh! No!" Face shouted.

Finch had the phone receiver in his hand and was snapping into it, "George! Get in here and bring Security!" just as McCready reached out with his free hand to rip the bandage from Face's eye.

The Director found himself staring into a blank, white, shining piece of ceramic, as perfect as it was inhuman, and a wave of revulsion hit him. He abruptly dropped Face's hand and stepped back, his own hands up, his gaze moving from the dreadful eye to the man cowering in his chair to escape the threat coming out of the darkness at him. He saw that Face was shaking and suddenly he remembered that he was dealing with a human being, not a science experiment.

"That won't be necessary," he said quietly to Finch.

The doctor looked from McCready to Face and back again. Then he spoke into the phone, his voice clipped and angry. "Never mind about Security. Get in here."

As he set down the phone, he fixed McCready with hard, wary eyes. He said nothing, and the Director made no attempt to explain or justify himself, just turned away from Face and moved back to his own chair.

George burst through the door a moment later, obviously prepared for some violent scene, to find them all sitting in their places in silence. Only Face's posture betrayed that anything had happened. He was huddled in his chair, clutching his right arm to his body and shaking with dry sobs. When he heard the door open, he flinched away from the sound, slamming his chair back against the window with the force of his retreat, and lifted his blind, mismatched gaze toward the new intruder.

"Nngh!"

The nurse halted abruptly and looked to Finch for guidance.

The doctor had his temper under control again and his voice was calm when he said, "George is here to take you back to your room, Face."

"G-george."

"Yeah, that's right," the nurse said, as he stepped around the table and bent over his patient. "You're gonna be fine, buddy."

"George." The relief in his voice was almost tangible.

"Let me give you a hand."

With George's help, Face got to his feet and limped toward the door.

"Get him settled and put a fresh dressing on his eye," Finch said quietly. "See that no one disturbs him till I come."

George nodded and steered his patient out of the room. Not until the door had shut behind them did McCready stir and look in Finch's direction.

"What was all that about?" he demanded, embarrassment putting a harsh edge on his voice. "I didn't hurt him."

"Yes, you did," Finch almost snarled, as close to openly hostile as his mild demeanor would allow him to get. "And you frightened him. He doesn't like being touched without warning, and especially not by strangers."

"I just needed to see for myself…"

"That he wasn't hiding a healthy eye under that bandage? That he isn't faking his brain damage?" Finch's derisive tone made McCready grind his teeth, but he couldn't come up with a suitable rejoinder, so he took it in silence. "I assume you're satisfied that he doesn't know where to find his teammates?"

McCready thought about that for several seconds, then he tempered, "I'm satisfied that Peck belongs here in your clinic, at least for now, and I won't have him arrested."

"I appreciate that. I'm sure Face does, as well."

"If I thought he had a clue what was going on - why I was here or what I could do to him - I'd have him behind bars in a heartbeat."

"You'd try." Finch crossed his arms over his chest and regarded McCready through his wire-rimmed glasses. His face has resumed its usual look of mild amusement, but there was still steel under it. "Let's not play games, Director McCready. You and I both know that Hannibal Smith will never let you put Face in prison. The most you can hope to accomplish is to drive him underground again, and how does that benefit anyone?"

"You're admitting that you know where Smith and the A-Team are, and that you'll contact them if I try to arrest Peck."

"I'm stating fact. Hannibal Smith looks after his boys. He always has and he always will. If you force his hand, he'll make Face disappear so completely that you won't be able to prove he ever existed. I don't want that to happen because I know how much it means to a man in his condition to have stability, support, experienced care, all the things he can't get on the run."

"You want me to pardon him so you can keep him here."

"Yes."

"The rest of them would still be fugitives."

"Frankly, I don't care about the rest of the A-Team. They're perfectly capable of taking care of themselves. But Face is my patient, my responsibility, and I don't want him threatened. Not by the U.S. Military or by his friends. As long as he remains a fugitive, he'll remain a potential weapon in your war against the A-Team. And that puts him at risk."

McCready sat staring at the table top, chewing over everything Finch had said and he had seen for himself today.

Finch let him digest in peace for a time, then asked in a quiet, unchallenging way, "If you had a simple choice - no duty or laws to uphold - would you put that man in a prison cell?"

He glanced up, an arrested look on his face, then he shook his head.

"Thank you. That's all I wanted to know. Can I do anything else for you, Director, or are we done here?"

"We're done." McCready pushed himself to his feet and stepped through the door that Finch opened for him. "For now. But I make no promises, Doctor Finch."

They moved down the hallway toward the lobby.

"I understand. Have a good day, Director McCready." He ushered his visitor through the front doors and watched as a long, black car with smoked windows slid up to the curb.

McCready nodded a wordless farewell, climbed into the back seat of the waiting car, and was gone. Finch heaved a silent sigh of relief.

* * *

Captain Sosa pushed past the nurse with one contemptuous glance. She was not intimidated by the man's size, being used to issuing orders to grunts and having them obeyed implicitly, but she did not like his air of concern. Too protective, by half. As she stepped through the doorway, the nurse tried to follow and said, anxiously, "I'll just make sure he's comfortable with having visitors…"

"That won't be necessary," Sosa said, blocking his path into the room.

"He's my patient, and I'm responsible…"

"He's Dr. Finch's patient, and I have Dr. Finch's permission to be here."

This was not, strictly speaking, a lie. Sosa's name was on the list of Face's approved visitors and had been since his arrival at the clinic, but she hadn't told Finch or anyone else that she was coming today and hadn't received clearance for her visit. So while she wasn't exactly lying, she wasn't exactly telling the truth, either.

"You aren't needed." With that, she shut the door in the startled nurse's face and turned to survey the room.

It was not a typical hospital room, warmer and more home-like than most, though it had enough of an institutional feel that no one would mistake it for anything else. Two beds filled most of the space, one of them pushed under the window in the far wall and raised to bring the mattress up to the sill. A man sat cross-legged on the bed – a man who was both infinitely familiar to her and infinitely strange, at the same time – with his shoulder propped against the window pane and his gaze fixed blankly on the sunlit world beyond.

"Face?"

He turned at the sound of Sosa's voice, showing her a neat bandage taped over his left eye. The uncovered eye slid past her face without touching it, and his expression darkened.

Sosa started across the room toward him. "It's good to see you, Face. I've been trying to get in here for weeks, but I couldn't get past your guard dogs. I had to wait until McCready chased them all away for a while."

He frowned at that, cocking his head to one side in confusion, but said nothing. Sosa skirted the empty bed and approached him, her eagerness turning to dismay as she drew closer and saw no welcome, no recognition in his wide, empty, intensely blue eye.

"It's me, Face. Charissa."

Still he said nothing, and the frown he wore deepened. As she approached, Sosa had the impression that he was drawing away from her without actually moving. She was close enough to touch him now, and the temptation was overwhelming. He looked so sad and confused, so young, with his shorn head and bandaged eye.

"Oh, Face, your hair," she sighed, reaching up to run her fingers through the short, soft remnants of his once-luxurious hair. "Your beautiful hair. What have they done…?"

The instant her fingers touched him, Face jerked his head away in alarm, cutting off her words, and gasped a formless protest.

"Face, it's okay!"

Snatching her hand away from his head, she reached for his arm, hoping to calm him, but his entire body stiffened at her touch, and he fairly crawled backward to escape her.

"Nngh! N-no… don't nnngh…!"

"It's _me_. It's _Charissa!_ "

"N-no! I d-d… Nngh!" As he ran out of words, his panic seemed to increase.

"Shh. It's okay. You don't have to be afraid of me." She made a move as if to perch on the mattress beside him, still holding his arm, but a furious shout from the doorway halted her.

" _What the Hell do you think you're doing?!_ "

Sosa whirled around to see Hannibal Smith standing in the doorway "Smith! What are you doing here?"

"Get your hands off him and get out!" Smith snarled, as he strode into the room and around the spare bed to reach her.

She snatched her hand away from Face's arm before her rational mind could stop her, but she collected herself in time to hold her ground. Refusing to back down or back away, she planted her feet and met Smith's glare with one of equal fury. Face slid back on the bed until his shoulders struck the window and he was trapped. His blind gaze jumped from the source of one voice to the other, trying to understand what was happening even as he hunted for a means of escape.

"I have as much right to be here as you do," Sosa retorted.

"We'll discuss your _rights_ somewhere else!" He grabbed her arm, ready to drag her from the room, but she refused to move.

Tearing her arm free of his grip, she hissed at him, "Touch me again and I'll break every bone in your hand!"

"You can try, lady, but all you'll get is a spanking!"

"Oh, that's lovely. Are we fighting in the schoolyard now, shouting childish threats at each other?"

"No, we're standing in a hospital room, and you're making an ass of yourself. Take a good look at your handiwork," he pointed to where Face sat huddled on the bed, "and tell me again that you have a right to be here!"

A new voice, much calmer but no less fierce, spoke from the doorway. "That's enough from both of you."

They turned together to see Dr. Finch enter the room with Murdock on his heels. As Finch cleared the doorway, Murdock slid around him and hurried to the far bed. Hannibal watched him climb onto the mattress and murmur something to Face, and he felt a twinge of guilt that he had not thought to do the same, had in fact ignored his friend in his desire to attack Sosa.

"My office, both of you. And try not to disturb the other patients on the way." As both Hannibal and Sosa moved to obey him, he added, "I'll join you in a few minutes."

They stalked out of the room and down the corridor without speaking or looking at each other. Not until he had shut the door of Finch's office behind them did Hannibal let loose his pent up rage.

"You're priceless! You really are! You don't have the guts to face me, so you wait until your boss has chased me away, then you sneak in here…"

"Why should I face you, Smith?!" she shot back, cutting off his tirade. "Why should I stand here and take your abuse? Who put you in charge of Face's life, to decide who comes near him and who doesn't?"

"I'm his commanding officer and his friend."

"I'm his friend, too. A much closer friend than you'll ever be."

Hannibal bared his teeth in something that was not a smile. "You're really going to go there? If you want to play the girlfriend card, I can trot a few dozen ladies in here who have a better claim to the title than you do."

"I care about Face!"

"Yeah, sure, now you do. When he's more a pet than a partner."

Sosa gaped at him in horror and disgust, at a total loss for words.

"Sounds ugly when you say it like that, doesn't it? Well, it looks pretty ugly too, from where I'm standing."

"I don't have to listen to this. I don't owe you any explanations, and I don't need your permission to visit Face."

At that moment, Finch opened the door and stepped quietly into the office. "Quite right, Captain, but you do need mine, and if today is a sample of how _both_ of you plan to behave, I'll be making some changes."

"I'm sorry, Doc," Hannibal said promptly. "I know I upset Face."

"Yes, you did, but Murdock has him well in hand. He'll be fine."

"He would be fine already, if Smith had minded his own business," Sosa protested.

Finch held up a hand to silence her. "This has been a very long, very trying day for Face. After the stress of Director McCready's visit, the very last thing he needed was another surprise. If you had consulted me, I would have advised you to wait a few days before seeing him."

"And Smith would have stopped me, just like today."

"Not if I arranged the visit. I am, after all, Face's doctor and the person with actual authority to decide who sees him and who doesn't." Hannibal glowered at that but offered no comment. "Unfortunately, you chose to circumvent my authority, and you put Face at risk in the process."

"At risk! I never…"

"Please, Captain." She subsided into hostile silence, her expression comically similar to Hannibal's, as they turned matching glares on Finch. "This is very simple. I don't care about your personal issues, only about Face's health and recovery. He knows and trusts Hannibal. He does not know you and your presence frightens him."

"Maybe he _does_ remember her," Hannibal muttered, earning him a warning frown from Finch.

"Now, the situation may change. He may regain enough confidence and emotional stability to welcome new acquaintances. He may want to meet the people from his past."

"Or he may remember me," she shot out, "and ask to see me!"

"That's unlikely. But you have my promise that, if he does, I will call you immediately."

She gave a skeptical snort. Finch raised his eyebrows at her.

"As I said, I don't care about your personal issues - with Face or with his teammates. I'm not playing favorites, just protecting my patient."

Sosa stared at him, hard-faced with the effort of controlling herself.

"You may call me when you want updates, but you may not come here unless specifically invited by me. And remember, Captain, Colonel, only _I_ have the authority to grant or deny access. To _anyone_. Do you understand me?"

"I understand," she said bitterly. "You've effectively written me out of his life."

"That remains to be seen. Either way, it's Face's choice."

"No, it's Smith's." She shot a burning glare at her adversary. "He and his precious boys think I'm some kind of predator, out to make a meal of Face. They don't care that Face once loved me, wanted me, and could again if given half a chance…"

"Don't _care_?" Hannibal nearly shouted. "Of course we care. That's why we're working so hard to protect him from you!"

"That doesn't make any sense!"

"Listen, lady, and try to put your ego aside long enough to hear me. I'm the closest thing to family that Face has got and I know him better than anyone. I knew him before and I know him now. And I know that he couldn't survive being blindsided by you again."

"You're so sure that I'll blindside him."

"Of course you will. This can only go two ways, and both of them end badly. In one, Face recovers enough to become something like the man you knew. You ran away from that man once, why wouldn't you again? He'd frighten you, challenge you, do whatever it was he did the last time to spook you, and you'd be gone.

"In the other scenario, he stays much like he is now - sweet and funny and trusting, but almost a child. How long would you put up with that for a lover? Honestly? How long would it take for the novelty to wear off and the reality of caring for a man like that to set in?"

"So you think I'd dump him on a street corner somewhere?"

"I think you'd stop loving him. To Face, it would feel pretty much the same."

"And you won't stop loving him - you and your _boys_. You won't abandon him when you've got more interesting battles to fight."

"No." The simple denial shut Sosa's mouth with a snap. "Unlike you, we've proven our loyalty to Face. We're his family, and we'll take care of him as long as he needs us."

Sosa found that she couldn't challenge this statement, much as she would have liked to. Instead, she turned to the doctor and said, "I won't just disappear, no matter what Smith thinks."

"I don't expect you to," Finch answered. "Call me when you want to know how Face is doing. And please believe that I have no desire to cut you out of his life."

She hesitated for a heartbeat, then nodded and turned for the door. "I'll be in touch."

With that, she was gone and Hannibal was alone with Finch. Both men spent a moment in thoughtful silence, digesting what had just happened. Then Hannibal said, "How did the meeting with McCready go?"

"As well as can be expected, I think. He admitted - off the record and all else aside - that Face doesn't belong in a prison cell. What that will ultimately mean, I don't know."

"He upset Face?"

"He tried to get information out of him, which was hard on both of them. Then he frightened him in much the way Captain Sosa just did - forgetting that he can't see and doesn't like to be touched by strangers. I'm sure Face will be fine, with a little time, but he's unsettled now. Nervous. And confused by all the people making demands on him."

"I'd like to go see him. Apologize for my behavior."

Finch nodded. "Just be aware of his mood. Don't push him, and don't bring up the argument if he seems anxious."

"Right." Hannibal started for the door, then turned back to ask, "Hey, Doc, do you think one of us should stay in his room tonight? We've been cutting back on that, giving him some space lately, because he seemed so comfortable here. But if he's really unsettled by what happened today…"

"That may be a good idea. Again, let him decide."

"Got it."

Hannibal left the office and hurried through the building to Face's room. He found the door shut and paused to collect himself before he opened it. Then he slipped quietly inside.

Face and Murdock were seated on the far bed. Face was leaning against the window glass, his head turned so that all Hannibal could see of his face was the curve of his jaw and the bandage on his eye. Murdock held his left hand in a firm clasp, saying nothing, radiating calm and affection.

As Hannibal moved closer, his feet sounded on the tile floor and Face flinched, twisting farther away from the noise.

"Hey, kid."

The familiar voice brought his head up and around. "H-hannibal."

"Yeah."

Some of the tension drained from Face's features, but he still looked drawn and wary. Hannibal stepped up beside the bed and spoke again, reassuring his friend that the presence so close beside him was a familiar one.

"I'm sorry I yelled before. I'm sorry I scared you."

"Han-nnibal."

"It's okay." Now that he was properly announced and recognized, Hannibal reached out to touch the other man. He slid one hand behind Face's neck to clasp his head. Face gave a little choke of relief and leaned forward to press his forehead into Hannibal's shoulder. "Okay," Hannibal soothed. "Okay. I'm sorry, kid."

Face just rested his head against Hannibal's familiar solidity and clung to Murdock's hand, saying nothing. The other two men exchanged a glance over his bent head.

"What'd they do to him?" Murdock whispered.

Hannibal shook his head, quieting him. "Why don't you lie down and rest, kid? You've had a long day."

"Rest."

"That's right." He coaxed Face into straightening up, then helped him settle back on the pillow. Murdock hopped off the bed but did not let go of his hand. "The window's open, so you can hear the birds. No one's going to bother you. Just rest."

"S-stay…"

Murdock pulled up a chair and dropped into it. "I'm not goin' anywhere, buddy."

"And I'll be back soon."

Face curled up on his side and let his unbandaged eye drifted closed. "Back s-s-oon."

"Yeah. You get some sleep, kid, and forget about today. I know it was rough." He put his hand briefly on Face's shorn head. "But maybe it was worth it."

* * *

Hannibal woke with a start and bolted upright, staring around him in confusion. He had no idea what had disturbed his sleep, but a harsh, wordless cry from the darkness chased away the last of the cobwebs from his brain and brought him to his feet in alarm. He crossed swiftly to the other bed, where Face slept, and switched on a lamp above it.

Face was still asleep but clearly in the grip of a dream. He thrashed about, trying to push away the covers, and cried out again. Hannibal hesitated for a bare moment, wondering whether or not to awaken him, then reached out to catch his arms and still his frantic movements.

"Face? Wake up, kid. Face."

Face tried to twist away from him, calling, "N-nno! Nngh-no!"

"Take it easy, kid. You're all right."

"Nnngh! M-murd-ngh!"

Then, abruptly, he fell still, panting for breath and shaking in reaction, but no longer fighting Hannibal's restraint. His right eye opened and gazed blankly into the middle distance. He drew in a shaking breath.

"That's better."

The blind, one-eyed gaze shifted toward the source of that familiar voice. "H-hannibal."

"Yeah, it's me. You okay, Face?"

"Mm."

Face struggled to sit up, clutching Hannibal's arm for support as he did so. He looked pale and sick in the dim light, a film of sweat on his forehead and a distinct tremor in his hand when he lifted it to clutch at his head.

"What happened?" Hannibal asked worriedly.

Face just hitched up his good shoulder defensively, telling his commander that he didn't have the words to explain.

"You were dreaming. A bad one, from the sound of it."

"D-drrr…"

"Dream. It's when you see things in your sleep."

"D-drm." Face pulled his left knee up nearly to his chest and bent to rest his forehead on it. "I d-don't nnngh…"

"Okay. It's okay." Hannibal rubbed his back soothingly. "You don't have to say anything. Just breathe and try to relax."

"D-drreamm… L-light," Face said.

"What?"

"L-light." He lifted his head and looked in Hannibal's direction, his features drawn with strain. Then he swept his left hand around, as if to indicate the room or the world at large. "L-light. Drream l-light."

"It was light in your dream?" Hannibal felt a prickle of mingled excitement and apprehension go down his back. "You could see the light?"

"S-see l-light." He reached toward Hannibal, touching first his shoulder then his face lightly. "See H-hannibal."

" _Jesus!_ " the colonel breathed. "You saw _me_ in your dream? Face, how do you know it was me?"

Again, Face could only give a half-shrug. His features contracted in pain, and he ducked his head to rest on his bent knee.

"It's okay, kid. Okay." Hannibal began rubbing his back again, while a thousand questions and conjectures jockeyed for position in his mind and ran up against the same obstacle - Face's terrible lack of words. "Did you see anyone else? Murdock? Bosco?"

Face made a wordless, affirmative noise without lifting his head. His shoulders were shaking, and Hannibal suddenly realized that he was crying. Sitting down on the edge of the mattress, Hannibal pulled the younger man close and held him tightly against the dry sobs that shook him.

"Jesus," Hannibal muttered again, unable to come up with any more useful words, for the moment as incoherent as his lieutenant.

* * *

"He _what?!_ " Murdock demanded.

"He remembered something."

"That's impossible." Turning to Finch, the pilot insisted, "Isn't it, Doc? Isn't that what you've been telling us?"

"It's certainly unexpected," Finch replied. He had the A-Team crowded into his office to hear Hannibal's account of last night, and the room seemed even smaller and more cramped than usual with so many large personalities in it. "I would have said it was impossible."

"Talk to him yourself," Hannibal countered. "You'll see what I mean."

"I will. But first, tell us what he said."

"He dreamed about us - the team - last night. He woke up in a bad state, shaking, sweating, and told me that he'd seen light in his dream."

"He doesn't know what a dream is."

"He does now. Anyway, I asked him if that's what he meant, just to be sure, and he told me he'd seen light and he'd seen _me_."

"This don't make no sense," B.A. growled. "How can Face be seein' you when he don't remember what you look like?"

"Exactly." Hannibal smacked his hand on the desk to underscore his point. "But he did, and he saw you and Murdock, as well. He saw us in his dream and _recognized_ us!"

"Geez," B.A. muttered.

"That was my reaction. And Face completely came apart. He was exhausted, but he was so terrified of dreaming again that he didn't fall back to sleep till dawn."

"Why would seeing us in a dream affect him like that?" Murdock asked.

All three men turned to gaze questioningly at Finch. The doctor looked troubled.

"If you're right, Hannibal, and he's remembering, then we're going to see a lot of unusual emotional displays. Depression, anger, resentment, rebellion. He hasn't dealt with the reality of his condition, up to now, because he wasn't aware of it. But the more he remembers, the more aware he'll become of what he's lost."

"So this is a bad thing," B.A. said. "Face remembering."

"It's a difficult thing. Whether it's bad or good depends on Face and his ability to adjust."

"But it means he'll go back to being the Face we remember, and that's got to be better than what he is now!" Murdock insisted.

"Better for us," B.A. replied, "maybe not for him."

"Either way, it's not up to us," Hannibal said heavily. "Face will remember or not, adjust or not, and we have to deal with it."

Finch nodded. "I'll run a brain scan to see what's changed, and I'll talk to the staff."

"Warn them not to say anything outside the clinic," Hannibal cut in. "This can't go beyond these walls."

The doctor thought about that for a moment, then said, "Ah. McCready."

"Right. If he hears so much as a whisper of this, Face'll lose his pardon for sure and we'll have to make him disappear to protect him."

"Yes, I see your point. I'll impress upon the staff the need for extra vigilance."

"And you can't tell Sosa."

Finch gazed thoughtfully at him, lips pursed. "Do you truly believe she would betray Face to McCready?"

"In case you've forgotten, she's the one who told McCready he was here in the first place. I don't know what she'd do with this piece of information, and I don't want to find out."

"I know you don't like her, Colonel, but…"

"She doesn't hear about this." Hannibal gave him a hard look. "If she does, we're gone. No warning and no argument, just gone. I won't put Face at risk, because you have a soft spot for El Diablo."

"Taking him on the run would put him at very grave risk."

"Then see that it isn't necessary."

Finch sighed. "I agree, for the present. But you would do well to remember that this is my clinic, and Face is my patient."

"He's my _family_."

The two men regarded each other across the desk, each measuring the other's resolve. It was Finch who broke the stalemate, smiling faintly at his opponent.

"It seems that we both want the same thing. Why are we arguing?"

Hannibal pushed back his chair and rose tiredly to his feet. "We aren't. I'm going to sit with Face until he wakes up, make sure he's okay, then I'm going back to the hotel to get some sleep myself."

"Me and Bosco'll look after him while you're gone," Murdock said.

The colonel nodded and strode out of the room, leaving the others sitting in disbelieving silence behind him.

* * *

Murdock perched on the edge of the spare bed, staring at Face's back and trying to find some way to spark his interest. In the last few weeks, the lieutenant's emotional state had steadily deteriorated, even as his cognitive and language abilities had flourished. His friends had watched this happen with ever increasing frustration, unable to help or to take any pleasure in his improvement. Face remembered, he understood, he put words together into actual - if awkward - sentences, but he visibly suffered. And his suffering intensified with every fragment of himself he reclaimed.

The staff were worried, too. They were used to this kind of reaction in patients, but they all liked Face so much and respected his military record so deeply that they quickly lost their objectivity when they saw him in pain. Murdock had heard more than one of them, including Face's own nurse, the implacable George, fretting about him over their coffee in the break room. Some had even gone to Finch with their worries.

Today, Face was supposed to be in PT, working on strengthening his muscles and loosening the joint in his right shoulder. Murdock knew his schedule better than any of the staff and knew he should be in the gym for another hour. But here he was, lying in bed, curled on his side, staring out at the street and waiting for the flash of sunlight on a passing car windshield to lighten his darkness for a brief moment. And here Murdock was, sitting helplessly by with a pain growing in chest as he watched his friend sink ever deeper into depression.

Clearing his throat to announce his presence, the pilot assumed his most cheerful voice and sang out, "Hey, Face!"

Face did not so much as stir. He kept his eyes resolutely on the window and ignored his visitor.

"Aren't you s'posed to be in therapy?" Still he got no answer. "Well, if you're not gonna work in the gym, how about we go for a walk? Hit the kitchen for a snack?"

"N-no."

"You can't just lie here all day, buddy."

Face said nothing, but he finally twisted partly onto his back so he could fix Murdock with his blank, one-eyed gaze. Not for the first time, Murdock noticed that Face's entire demeanor had changed. He was no longer the sweet, warm, rather childish man Murdock had grown used to over the past months. He was suddenly an adult. Himself. But a drawn, shadowed, saddened version of himself.

"You'll feel better if you…" Murdock started, but Face cut him off.

"N-no. L-l… l-leave…" He struggled for a moment to find the right words, then change to the simpler, "G-go."

"I can't leave you alone like this."

"Go," he insisted, his features tight with strain. When Murdock did not move, he turned away again and said sharply, "G-go aw _-way!_ "

Murdock stared at him, shocked into silence. Never once, in all their years as teammates, warriors and friends, had Face ever ordered him away like this. Murdock had sat beside him in countless hospitals, clinics and field dressing stations, watching a parade of unknown doctors stitch him up after his latest act of insane bravery, and never once had Face told him to leave. The pilot felt as if his best friend had just punched him in the face. He didn't know what to say, how to react, so he just sat there and stared in disbelief.

Face seemed to wilt into the mattress as the force of Murdock's hurt and disappointment struck him. He drew an unsteady breath and murmured, "P-please. I w-want… want t-to…"

"You want to be alone." Murdock pushed himself wearily to his feet and shoved his hands into his pocket. "I wish you'd let me help, Face. You _always_ let me help. Why is this time different?"

Of course, Face had no words to answer that, even if he might understand on some level. Murdock saw him twitch his shoulders, as if shrugging off an unwelcome touch, and turned away with a sigh.

"Have George call, if you want me. You know I'll come."

Face said nothing, and he trudged out of the room with his shoulders bowed.

Ten minutes later, Murdock slid his card key into a hotel door and stepped into the suite the A-Team had occupied since their arrival in Virginia. Hannibal and B.A. were both there, eating a lunch they'd microwaved in the little kitchenette and holding a heated discussion that cut off abruptly when Murdock walked in.

"What's up?" the pilot asked, with no evident curiosity.

"What's up with _you_?" B.A. countered, his eyes studying Murdock's slumped posture and long face suspiciously. "I thought you were gonna spend the day with Faceman."

"He doesn't want me," Murdock answered dully, turning away to throw himself into an armchair.

"What happened?" Hannibal asked.

"He threw me out."

"Face threw you out? _Face?_ "

"Told me to go away and leave him alone."

Hannibal chewed that over for a minute, a frown gathering on his face, then shot a look at B.A. and said, "That tears it. We can't go, now."

"Because Face had a temper tantrum?"

"Because Face is in a bad way, and we can't leave him."

Murdock finally mustered the energy to show some interest in what the others were talking about and craned his neck to glare at Hannibal. "'Course we can't leave 'im. Why would we?"

"Mr. Lee called," Hannibal said, heavily. "We've been put on."

"A mission?" Murdock twisted around to face them. "You're seriously talking about a mission?"

"We need to get back in the game."

"Why? So the sleaze bags out there don't forget who we are?" the pilot demanded, sourly.

"So our potential clients don't forget who we are. And so we stay sharp." Hannibal gazed wearily at the captain, as if he had expected this battle and dreaded it. "We're mercenaries. Soldiers for hire. We can't compete in the market if we get sloppy, and we can't help our clients."

"Our clients can hire somebody else," Murdock retorted. "We've got a mission, right here, to look after Face."

"That won't pay the bills. And honestly, Murdock, how long do you think you can do this? Hide in the clinic, playing nursemaid? You need a life. We all do. And this - this job - is our life."

"What about Face's life?"

Hannibal sighed. "What do you want me to say? That Face will recover and join the team again? We all know that isn't happening."

"So we just abandon him and run off to play soldier?"

"We don't abandon him. We never abandon him. But there has to be a way that Face can have a life and we can, too. I'm just not sure _how_."

"Take the mission," B.A. said firmly. When the other two men turned doubtful gazes on him, he went on, "We knew this day was comin', Boss Man. We talked about it, back in Baghdad, remember?"

"I remember."

"Well, it's here and we won't help Face or ourselves by pretendin' it ain't."

"I'm not pretending. I'm thinking about Face's state of mind and how it might affect him, if we go off on a mission at this particular moment."

B.A. shook his head stubbornly. "It's only gonna get harder, the longer we wait. Right now, he's angry and depressed and he don't want us around. He probably won't even notice we're gone. But if we wait till he's feelin' better, he'll expect us to be there, want to see us, and probably want to go _with_ us, if we leave. You really want to explain to Faceman that we're goin' on a mission without 'im?"

"That day is coming, too, no matter what we decide to do about _this_ mission."

"Yeah, but we need to find out how the team works without our Faceman - if we can even do what we do without 'im - before we tell 'im we're back in business."

He looked from Hannibal to Murdock and back again, willing them to understand without making him say it aloud. They just gazed sadly at him, waiting. "You guys know it may not work without Face. We been a team so long, we're like one person with four heads. What if we can't think right with only three? Can't make the magic happen?"

"We still got Hannibal," Murdock said, very quietly. "He makes the magic."

"I know. And I'm not sayin' I believe that the A-Team is done. I'm sayin, I gotta know. We all gotta know. And we gotta find out before we tell Face that he ain't part of the team no more."

"He'll _always_ be part of the team," Hannibal protested.

"You know what I mean."

The colonel hesitated for a moment, frowning, then nodded.

"So I say we take the mission and see what happens. Then, when we've finished the job, we decide what we're gonna do for sure and how to tell Faceman."

"What if he needs us, and we're a continent away?" Murdock asked.

"He's got Doc Finch and George and the rest. They can help 'im better than we can, right now."

"And we don't tell him where we're going?"

"Right."

"We have to give some excuse for leaving," Hannibal put in.

"Not if we make it quick. He wants us to give 'im some space, and that's what we're doin'. By the time he wants us, we'll be right where he expects us to be."

"How long would we be gone?" Murdock asked.

"We won't know till we get there," Hannibal said. "It looks simple enough but you know how these things go. We could end up somewhere in South America, taking out a drug cartel."

"And once we accept the mission, we can't back out," B.A. added.

"No." Hannibal made another circuit of the room and said, "We all have to agree on this one. I won't give any orders. We know what you think, B.A., but how about you, Murdock?"

Murdock scowled at the floor, unwilling to meet their eyes. "I hear what Bosco's saying, but I don't like leaving Face alone."

"He's alone right now," B.A. pointed out.

Murdock threw him a startled look that turned thoughtful as he realized that the corporal was right. "Call Finch. Ask him."

When both Hannibal and B.A. turned to stare at him, he went on, "Finch has done right by Face, and by us, since Baghdad. I trust him. If he says Face can handle it, I believe him, and I'm willing to go."

Hannibal nodded and pulled out his cell phone. "Fair enough."

As he dialed, he wandered away from his men, leaving them to wait in suspense. They sat down and simply looked at each other for a handful of minutes, until Murdock finally broke the heavy silence.

"You and Hannibal talked about doing missions without Face? All the way back in Baghdad?"

"We talked about the team, about how we'd survive if Face was… well, the way he is."

"Hannibal must've had a plan."

"No, but he promised he would by the time we needed it."

"This is it, then? Hannibal Smith's master plan? We leave Face with a bunch of doctors and nurses and therapists and just go back to being soldiers?"

"What else can we do, Crazy Man?" The big corporal's eyes were suspiciously bright as he fixed them, pleadingly, on his friend. "What else do we know how to be?"

"Nothin'." Murdock swallowed the lump in his throat and avoided the other man's gaze. "I get it. But I hate it."

"Me, too."

At that moment, Hannibal strode up to them, a new energy in his step. "Finch says, go."

Murdock heaved himself out of his chair, wearing a resigned expression. "Then we better get moving. We can stop at the clinic on the way to the airport."

"No stops, Captain," Hannibal said firmly.

Murdock halted his move for the door and turned to stare in disbelief at his commander. "We're gonna leave without saying goodbye to Face?"

"If we say goodbye, he knows we're gone, and that blows the whole deal."

The pilot opened his mouth to argue, then thought better of it and shut it again. Finally he shrugged and started for the door, muttering, "I got a bad feeling about this."

"You been watchin' too many Star Wars movies," B.A. retorted.

"No," Hannibal said, "I know what he means. But like you said, B.A., we've got to do it sometime. And it won't get any easier if we wait."

With that, the three men grabbed their jackets and headed out the door.

* * *

It was raining, lightly but steadily, filling the room with the monotonous sound of water pattering on leaves outside the window. Face had the window open, as usual, and was unconcerned by the damp air that flowed through it. He lay quietly on his bed, listening, trying to remember where he had actually seen rain. His few, fragmentary memories were of dry, bare, hot places, where rain rarely fell. But he knew he'd heard it before and wished he could conjure a picture of it in his head.

The rain helped him relax. It filled his brain and drove out thoughts that frightened or hurt him. And it covered the small sounds that filtered into his room from deeper in the building, letting Face pretend that he was really alone with the rain, alone in a safe and soothing place. Maybe he could even sleep, with the rain there to drown out his dreams.

That thought jolted him abruptly out of his peaceful state and brought him upright on the bed. He sat stiffly, every nerve and muscle taut with fear, until he was sure that sleep was far away, that he was fully awake. Then he sagged against the window screen in relief.

He didn't sleep anymore, not willingly and not at all until exhaustion tricked him into letting down his guard. He had slipped into unconsciousness sometime in the loneliest stretches of the night, only to wake up in a cold sweat with visions crowding his brain that he couldn't put words to. He remembered heat and sweat and blood and pain. A man lying in the dirt with ugly gray and red globs all around his head. Another man snarling and laughing, holding a nameless weapon in his hands that made Face's guts churn with fear. A voice screaming. And Murdock. Murdock wasn't there, Face couldn't reach him or ask him to explain, but somehow he was part of the horror. The voice was screaming his name, over and over again, until Face wanted to scream himself to drown it out.

Even now, when he was awake and free of the dream, he could hear the screaming and feel the terrible fear. Desperate to get away from it, to find the soothing protection of the rain again, he pressed his forehead hard into the screen. It was wet and cold against his skin, and he savored the sensation. He wanted to touch the rain, to feel it, to become part of it. He wanted to escape his room, escape his dreams and his memories, the sorrow and disappointment of his friends, the hopes and expectations that pounded at him so relentlessly, to lose himself in the rain.

Lifting his good hand, he flattened it on the screen and felt the thin mesh bend under the pressure. Moisture collected on his palm and his face, as he leaned harder and harder against the flimsy barrier. Then suddenly, with a screech and a pop, the support of the screen was gone and Face pitched forward through the window.

He gave a cry of surprise and flung out his hands to catch himself, as he half fell, half slithered out the window. The surface he landed on was entirely alien to him. It gave under his weight, snapping and cracking, its many sharp points catching at his skin and clothing as he sank through it. His hand touched something more solid, wet and squashy but firm enough to hold his weight, and he scrabbled at it for support. A moment later, his body crashed through the last of the ornamental shrub and fell heavily into the muddy flowerbed.

Panic took him, and he thrashed about in the grip of clinging, scratching twigs with no clear thought except escape. Suddenly he rolled free, into open space, and lay on his back, panting, as the rain pattered on his face. Slowly, fighting weak muscles and stiff joints, he pushed himself up on his hands and tried to take in his surroundings.

He sat on a firm, wet, slightly prickly surface that he had a vague idea he ought to recognize. Like rain, it was something he'd experienced in his former life but couldn't picture in his head now. The familiar swish of tires against wet pavement marked the road off to his right. A soft, gray light was barely visible in his damaged eye, but it was enough to reassure him that it was daytime, and he was outside. Free.

He'd never been outside the clinic - not that he could remember - and he'd never been anywhere outside his room without someone to guide him. This freedom was entirely new to him, frightening but also exciting. And for the first time in endless, dark, miserable days, he didn't want to hide or cry or fade into the blackness to escape his pain and failure. He wanted to explore.

With a groan of effort, Face pushed himself awkwardly to his feet and paused to catch his balance. He was already shivering with cold, his light, cotton clothing soaking wet and smeared with mud, his exposed skin decorated with stinging scratches, but he noticed none of this. He was free. He could go anywhere he liked, and no one was around to stop him. So he took his courage in his hands and stepped forward into the darkness to discover what was out there.

He headed for the road first, because it was the only feature he could identify in the vast emptiness. The grass sloped gently downward, with no trees or bushes to impede his progress, then ended abruptly at the sidewalk. Face hesitated when he felt concrete under his feet, but he had committed himself to braving the unknown, and he refused to turn back simply because the feel of the ground had changed beneath him.

It occurred to him that he'd made a mistake when he suddenly found himself sprawled in the street, his knees and elbows torn open by the rough pavement, wondering why the sidewalk had disappeared. He staggered to his feet and crossed the road, luckily encountering no traffic on the quiet side street, then learned another harsh lesson about curbs when his bare toes connected painfully with wet concrete. He was bruised, bloodied and shaken when he gained the safety of the far sidewalk, but all the more grimly determined. Face was nothing if not stubborn, and the harder the world tried to drive him back into his sheltered room, the harder he would fight against it.

In recent weeks, as his past slowly pieced itself together in his head and he began to grasp how much he had changed, Face had come to think of himself as helpless and stupid. A failure and a burden to those around him. But this was far from true. He learned from his mistakes - learned quickly - even under the most stressful circumstances, like wandering alone and blind through a rainswept city.

He learned to recognize busy streets by the constant rush of traffic. He learned to expect light poles and signposts - both a hazard and a support - at the spots where one street intersected another. He learned to keep to the sidewalk, moving with the cars instead of across their paths. And the farther he walked, the fewer injuries or indignities he suffered. Twice, he stumbled into the street and narrowly missed a passing vehicle, earning him shouted obscenities and a blast on the horn that deafened him for a few seconds. But on the whole, he managed to avoid trouble.

He was exhausted, cold and sore, limping slowly along a major street, when he reached yet another corner and paused to rest against a convenient pole. He didn't like this street, didn't like the roar of the traffic or the way the car tires threw water on him as they passed. He wanted to find a quiet place to sit and gather his thoughts. So he turned down the new street and followed the sidewalk as it curved away from the noise and bustle. He wandered aimlessly for a few minutes, until he realized that he'd lost the sidewalk and was walking on grass. Before he had a chance to process this change, he walked face-first into a tree.

Face knew about trees. He remembered them from his life before the darkness, and he could even picture one in his head, if he concentrated. The impact with the trunk jarred his bad shoulder and bruised his face, but he was glad to find something truly familiar in all this strangeness, and he wrapped his arms around it gratefully. After a moment leaning against the trunk, he turned and slid down it to sit in the damp earth at the base of the tree, resting his head back against the rough bark and closing his eye.

It was a blessed relief to be still, even if the tree spilled water on him with every gust of wind and his bones ached with cold. He felt shaky and lightheaded, so tired he could barely find the strength to move, and even the minimal shelter of a tree seemed welcoming to him in this state. In some nagging corner of his mind, he knew he couldn't stay here. He was out in the middle of nowhere, with no friendly person or object in reach. Sooner or later, he would have to try to find his way home, even if he dreaded stepping back into the stifling sameness of the clinic. Stubborn he might be, but he was not a fool and he knew he couldn't wander the wet, cold, nameless streets forever.

Heaving a weary sigh, he tried to shut out all thoughts of the clinic or how he would find his way back there, and concentrated on the sounds the rain made on the leaves of the tree above him. He was mentally drifting, edging toward sleep, when another sound intruded on his notice. It was completely strange and yet hauntingly familiar. A tiny, sharp, plaintive cry that stirred limping memories and forced him to move in spite of his exhaustion.

Pushing himself onto his hands and knees, he crawled toward the sound. It grew louder as he approached, more desperate, and his chest began to ache in sympathy. His hand came down on wet dirt, as stiff branches brushed his arm and face. Sitting back on his heels, he began fumbling through the shrubbery, hunting for the source of the cry. He touched twigs, leaves, dirt, mud… and suddenly, something moved beneath his fingers.

It was as wet, shivering and filthy as he was himself, but it was tiny and fragile, a handful of soaking fur and squirming limbs. And he felt a rush of protectiveness fill him at its touch. As he curved his left hand around it and lifted to his chest, it cried sharply and caught one finger between its paws. Face uttered a wordless, comforting sound, cradling the creature against him in an effort to warm it.

Scrambling free of the bushes with his good hand full of trembling fur proved difficult, but Face was once again consumed by stubborn determination. He recognized the creature's distress, felt the cold that shook it and heard the hunger in its cries. He didn't know how to help it, but he was fiercely determined to try.

He freed himself of the bushes and, after two unsuccessful tries, climbed to his feet still clutching the tiny animal. It took him a moment to locate the street, so quiet was this area, but finally he heard a passing car and headed off in its direction. The change from grass to concrete warned him that he was on a sidewalk. He paused to orient himself, turning in what he hoped was the direction of the busy street he'd left behind some time ago.

Another car approached from an unexpected direction, confusing him, and he took an unwary step off the curb. With a cry of protest, he fell into the street, landing hard on his right hip and elbow, then rolling onto his back. He lay, stunned, while the animal in his hand cried continuously and noises hammered at him out of the darkness.

The car that had startled him pulled to a stop. Doors slammed and footsteps slapped on the wet pavement. Voices came to him - unfamiliar voices full of bluster and authority - and halted above him.

"All right, pal, let's get you up."

A big hand fastened around Face's upper arm and hoisted him unceremoniously to his feet. Face tried to withdraw from the strange touch, but the hand wouldn't let him go.

"It's kinda early in the day to be falling-down drunk, don't ya think? How 'bout we take you back to the station, where you can sleep it off?"

Face lifted his head toward the voice, giving the stranger a clear view of his blank, mismatched gaze. The other man fell silent. Holding out his handful of wet fur, Face said, haltingly, "C-crying. Hungry."

The policeman - for that's what he was, even if Face couldn't see it - stared at the creature in his hand, then up at his thin, scratched, scarred and bandaged face. "Yeah." He'd lost his blustering tone and now sounded almost gentle. "Looks like a kitten, and a mighty young one."

"K-kittngh… kittnnn hungry. Cold. Crying." As if to prove his point, the kitten gave a miserable wail that prompted Face to pull it back against his chest protectively. "Help k-kittenngh."

"Okay." The cop seemed to get his balance and find his authoritative manner again. "Let's get you both back to the station, and we'll see what we can do."

The second cop spoke up for the first time, his voice sounding much younger and less certain than his partner. "What d'you figure to do with him, Pat? He isn't drunk, and he isn't breaking any laws."

"Get him warm and dry, and feed that kitten. Then we'll figure out where he belongs. We can't leave 'im out here in the rain."

"Feed the k-kitten," Face agreed.

The meaty hand closed around his arm again, and this time, Face did not flinch. He had decided that he trusted the man called Pat, so he followed him to the squad car without protest and slid obediently into the back seat. When both cops were seated in the front, Pat fired up the engine and pulled away from the curb, while his partner dug around in the glove box, muttering to himself.

The car ride was an entirely new experience for Face, and under other circumstances it would have frightened or intrigued him. But now, he was completely focused on his crying kitten and didn't pay attention to the strangeness of his surroundings. When the second cop shoved a towel into his hands, with instructions to wrap the kitten in it, he simply smiled his thanks and complied as well as his cold, stiff, half-crippled hands could manage. Then he held the little body close to his own and made soothing noises at it.

They drove for several minutes, while Face sat quietly in the back and the two policemen discussed him in lowered tones. At the station, they pulled up to the door, and the younger cop helped Face out of the car. He waited patiently in the rain, while Pat parked the squad car and joined them on the curb. Then he let Pat guide him up a few steps and through the doors into the squad room.

A wave of noise crashed into him, making him stagger back in alarm, but Pat's hand steadied him. Voices shouted at him from every side, objects banged and clattered, feet clumped on the floor, chairs scraped and machines beeped. Face couldn't put names or shapes to any of it. He could only hunch his shoulders, clutch his kitten a little more tightly, and force himself to wade into the chaos at Pat's insistence. As he navigated the treacherous space, he whacked his shins, knees and bare toes on countless solid objects. Other bodies collided with his, and more than one hand grabbed him to steady him or shove him rudely away. By the time Pat pulled him to a stop and planted him in a chair, he was shaking as much with nerves as with cold.

"Get him a blanket, Harris," Pat said, as he dropped into another chair beside Face, "and something hot to drink. You like coffee, pal?"

Face looked blankly at him for a moment, then said, "Feed the k-kitten."

"Right. You heard the man, Harris. See what you can find for the kitten."

Captain Fitzgerald entered the station through the back door, having enjoyed a nice lunch at his favorite diner and a leisurely cup of coffee. It had been a quiet day in the precinct, so he'd indulged himself. Now it was time to tackle the pile of paperwork on his desk. As he strolled down the hallway, past a row of interrogation rooms, he heard a hubbub in the squad room and abruptly changed his mind. Leaving his office behind him, he made for the wide, central room, crammed with desks and equipment.

Most of the precinct was out on patrol, but a number of officers were crowded around one desk near the middle of the room, all talking and laughing. Fitzgerald threaded a path between the desks to reach them, while he studied the two men at the center of the mob. One was Pat McGraw, a veteran beat cop who could always be trusted to make good decisions and keep his head. The other was a stranger seated by McGraw's desk, wrapped in a blanket, holding something in his hands that had everyone in the room fascinated. As he drew near, he could make out some actual words in the babble of noise.

"Harris found the glove in the Evidence Room," "…hungry little thing, ain't it?" "I never saw one so small," "…some of that canned mild Gutierrez puts in his coffee…" "…disgusting, but she likes it…" "Would you look at that?" "McGraw, of course. He gets all the good ones."

Fitzgerald paused at the back of the group and cleared his throat loudly. The two men nearest him turned abruptly to find their commanding officer behind them. "Captain!" one exclaimed.

Suddenly, the chatter was all aimed at him, and a path opened in the cluster of bodies to let him trough. He strode up to the front of the group, ignoring the comments and questions of his men, planted his hands on his hips, and stared down at the startling scene.

The man huddled by McGraw's desk was completely bedraggled and miserable looking. He was soaking wet, muddy, with bare feet and torn clothing, covered in scratches, cuts and bruises. In one hand, he cradled a squirming bundle of cloth. In the other, he clutched a rubber glove, swollen and sloshing, that squirted white liquid from a pinhole in one fingertip. As Fitzgerald watched, bemused, a kitten poked its head out of the bundle, caught the dripping fingertip between its paws, and began to drink from it.

The collected officers all broke out in a chorus of cheers and congratulations at the sight. The man who held the kitten glanced up, smiling faintly, and Fitzgerald got a good look at him for the first time.

He felt a surge of pity when the blank, one-eyed gaze touched him, followed almost immediately by a prickle of recognition. He had seen this man before, somewhere, though the obvious illness in his face and the bandage over his eye confused the picture. He was oddly and unsettlingly familiar.

"Enough!" Fitzgerald barked, bringing instant quiet, "Break time is over! Don't you all have work to do?"

"Yes, sir," "Sorry, sir," "Right you are, Captain," rang out all around him, as the officers scrambled for their own desks and assigned tasks. In a moment, only McGraw, his rookie partner, Harris, and the battered stranger remained.

Fitzgerald eyed the two cops from under lowered brows and said, dryly, "All right, McGraw, let's hear it."

"Sir?" big, beefy McGraw replied, with studied innocence.

"Who is this man, and why is he feeding a kitten in the middle of the squad room?"

"Well, sir, the kitten was crying, making a real ruckus, and I thought it would be…"

"Pat," the captain said, a warning in his voice.

McGraw broke out in a shamefaced grin. "We picked him up over by the park on Great Jones street, Cap'n. Got a call that a man was wandering in traffic, causing a disturbance. When we went to check it out, he tripped and fell in the street, practically under our tires. We thought he was drunk, but when we got him up, we could see he wasn't." He shot a worried look at the bedraggled man. "Just lost and kinda confused. We didn't want to leave him out in the rain, so we brought him back here to dry off and warm up while we figure out what to do with him."

"And the kitten?"

"He must've found it in the park. He was holding it when we picked him up."

The man suddenly looked up and said, "F-feed the kittngh." The words were easy enough to understand, but slurred and forced in a way that made Fitzgerald stare intently at him, at the scar on his temple, and frown heavily.

The man dropped his blind gaze to the kitten again, relieving Fitzgerald of the need to find an appropriate response. The captain looked at his bent head for a moment, trying yet again to remember where he had seen this man before, then turned back to McGraw.

"Any clue who he is?"

"Yeah, he's wearing an ID wristband, the kind they give you in the hospital. Says his name is J. Tyler."

"So he's AWOL from a hospital?"

"A private clinic called Finch-Howard NRRC."

"What's NRRC?"

"Neurological Research and Rehabilitation Center. We looked it up. It's over on Oak, not too far from the park where we found our friend Tyler. They treat veterans, mostly, and people with brain damage."

"Mm." Fitzgerald nodded, his eyes going back to their visitor. This was a man who belonged in the care of doctors, if he'd ever seen one. So how had he come to be wandering around the park, in the rain, holding a starving kitten?

Pulling a chair from another desk around to face Tyler, Fitzgerald seated himself and leaned forward to speak in a calm, quiet tone that would not be overheard by the rest of the squad room.

"Mr. Tyler?" The man gave no sign he heard. "Mr. Tyler," he repeated, more firmly. When he still got no response, he reached out to touch the other man's arm and said, "We need to talk, Mr. Tyler."

The man looked in his direction, his face blank with confusion.

"My name is Fitzgerald. Yours is Tyler? J. Tyler?" He paused, waiting for some reaction, then asked, "What does the J stand for?"

"F-face."

"Face? That's a name?" McGraw interjected.

Fitzgerald reached over to catch the man's wrist, turning the plastic band so he could read it. Tyler flinched at his touch but did not pull away. "What's the J for?" he repeated.

"My n-name is Face." The stranger smiled, and the whole room seemed to brighten for a moment. And suddenly, the captain understood. He knew why this battered ghost of a man was so familiar to him, why his mere presence in the room had attracted the attention of every officer in range, why they tripped over themselves to find food and a makeshift bottle for an abandoned kitten. If he was right - and his gut told him he was - then this man could charm the devil out of Hell, even in his current condition, and Fitzgerald had just seen the very smallest hint of his power.

Shooting a frowning look up at McGraw, he said, "Get him into one of the interrogation rooms. See if you can warm him up - another blanket, some food or coffee or something - it looks like he's freezing where he sits. And keep it quiet. I don't want half the precinct stopping by to check on that blasted kitten."

"Right, Cap'n."

If McGraw was surprised by these instructions, he didn't show it. Harris, with a good deal less experience on the job and less command over himself, started to blurt out a question, but McGraw cut him off with a curt order. While the two officers got Face to his feet and led him, trailing a damp blanket, toward the rear hallway, Fitzgerald hurried back to his office.

Inside, he shut the door and logged into his laptop. It took him a few minutes to access the correct website and find the page he wanted. Clicking a link, he sat back and stared at the file that opened and the pictures attached to it. Stared and stared and tried not to believe it. But he had known, even before he saw that smile blazing back at him from the computer screen.

McGraw slipped into the room while he was still sitting and staring and thinking. "What's up, Cap'n?" he asked, as he took the empty chair facing the desk.

Without answering, Fitzgerald turned the computer around to show him the display. The cop blinked at it stupidly for a moment, then swore under his breath.

"He's a Federal Fugitive? That can't be right!"

"A member of the notorious A-Team. I couldn't place him till he said his name. Face. But it's all there in the file. His teammates call him Face because… well, you can see why."

"But he's not… not right in the head. He can barely talk. And he's _blind!_ "

"I know that."

"All he cares about is feeding that damned kitten!"

" _I know that_."

"So what're we gonna do with him, sir? Call the Military and have him locked up in Federal prison? Are they gonna let him keep his pet in Leavenworth? Sir?"

"What choice do we have?"

McGraw's face turned suddenly inscrutable. "That's not for me to say."

"I asked for your opinion, Pat."

The officer shifted uncomfortably in his chair, avoiding the captain's steady gaze. "Well… it seems kind of pointless, doesn't it? Arresting him?"

Fitzgerald shifted his gaze to the picture on his screen and stared sightlessly at it for another moment. "Do you have a number for the clinic?"

McGraw fished a small notebook from his pocket, riffled through the pages, then tore one off and slapped it on his desk. "He's in Interrogation 2. I made him as comfortable as I could, but those rooms don't give you much to work with."

"Did you feed him?"

"He didn't want anything, so I left a cup of coffee on the table. He's happy right now 'cause the kitten is happy." Climbing ponderously to his feet, he said, "What d'you want me to do, Cap'n?"

"Get back to work. And muzzle Harris, if you can, till we get this sorted out."

"Aye, sir. Good luck."

Fitzgerald nodded without lifting his eyes to the other man, and McGraw strode out of the room.

The captain entered the interrogation room quietly and moved up to the table before the man seated behind it noticed him. When he pulled out a chair, scraping it on the linoleum, Face looked up. His expression was wary.

"It's Fitzgerald," the captain said, as he sat. "Do you remember me?"

"Y-yes."

"How is your kitten?"

That earned him a flashing smile. "G-good."

"May I see it?"

Face slid his hands across the table, the towel bundle cradled on his palms, to show Fitzgerald the tiny animal curled inside. The kitten was asleep and smacking its lips contentedly, as it dreamed. It was painfully cute, but the police captain was immune to cuteness in helpless creatures. His life was about helping people, not kittens, and right now he was struggling with how best to help this man without betraying everything he believed in.

"Where did you find it?"

"Rain. Outs-side… in the rain." The effort it cost him to form the phrase, and the triumph he felt in doing it were all too apparent.

"What were you doing outside in the rain?"

"Walk… walknghh… Ngh!" He made a little sound of frustration, his mouth tightening, and unconsciously pulled the kitten closer for reassurance.

"You were walking? Where were you going?"

"G-go?" Face frowned in concentration, then shrugged one shoulder and looked away, which Fitzgerald interpreted to mean that he didn't understand the question and didn't want to admit it.

"You live at the hospital, don't you?"

That earned him another confused look.

"The clinic?"

"Clin-nn… cl… Yes."

"Why did you leave?"

"F-fell…"

"You fell?"

"Outside."

"I don't understand, Face."

He gave his one-sided shrug again, lifting the kitten to his chest and bending to murmur wordlessly to it.

"Face." He waited for the other man to look up again. "I'm a police officer. Do you know what that means?"

"N-no."

"I have to follow the law. And the law says that you're a criminal." Once again, he waited for a response that didn't come. "You don't know what a criminal is, do you?"

"No."

"A fugitive?"

"No."

"A fugitive is someone who ran away from the police and is hiding from them. Understand?"

Face just gazed down at his kitten, tacitly dismissing the captain's words.

"Very well." He pushed himself to his feet and stood, looking down at the other man. "I want you to stay in this room. Take care of your kitten. Wait for me to come back. Will you do that?"

Face continued to murmur to the kitten.

"Can I get you anything? Are you hungry or cold?"

"N-no…"

"I'll be back soon."

With that, he left the room, locking the door behind him and pocketing the key. Back in his office, he sat at his desk and confronted the reality of what he had to do. On the computer screen was the contact number for the Military Police. In his hand was the slip of paper with the phone number of the clinic. He had to choose. He had to pick up the phone, call one of these numbers, and commit himself to a course of action. Compassion or duty? Instinct or the law? What could he bring himself to do and what could he live with, once it was done?

With a sigh, he reached for the phone.

Twenty minutes later, Captain Fitzgerald ushered two men into the interrogation room where Face sat. The first one through the door was a disarmingly small, insignificant-looking man with round glasses and a mild expression that belied his reputation. The other was an enormous bruiser, with tattoos on his massive arms, pushing a wheelchair. Both men seemed anxious, until they laid eyes on Face. Then their expressions warmed in relief and they hurried across the room to him.

"Face?" Finch called. "Are you all right?"

Face glanced up, his blind gaze tracking the doctor's progress and his features tightening in distress. Fitzgerald watched him stiffen and wondered what was wrong. These men obviously cared about him, were worried about him, and had raced over here to get him out of the clutches of the police before the military authorities caught wind of his presence, but Face was not glad to see them.

"We were worried about you," Finch went on, as he circled the table to reach his patient. "You disappeared without telling anyone."

George followed him with the wheelchair and knelt by Face's chair to speak to him in a reassuring tone. "Hey, buddy. Let's get you into some warm clothes."

"I don't mean to rush you," Fitzgerald cautioned, "but a lot of people know he's here. And if someone other than me recognizes him…"

"No worries, Captain," the nurse assured him. He was already pulling warm socks and fleece-lined boots over Face's bare feet. "We'll be out of here in no time."

"Let me hold that," Finch said, reaching for the swaddled kitten, as George coaxed Face to his feet. But Face reacted violently, pulling the bundle away from Finch and retreating into his chair with a wordless cry. "All right. I'm sorry I upset you."

George, with the ease of much experience, got Face to his feet and slid his arms into the sleeves of a bulky military parka. He deftly transferred the kitten from one hand to the other as he did so, allowing Face to keep hold of it. Then he settled his patient in the wheelchair.

"Okay, buddy?" he asked, as he unlocked the wheels.

Face gave no answer. He clutched the kitten protectively to his chest, tucking it into the front of the coat to hide it from his rescuers.

George wheeled him toward the door and paused just inside, shooting a questioning look at Finch. The doctor stopped to thank Fitzgerald one more time, but suddenly, the captain wasn't so anxious for them to leave.

"He seems really upset," Fitzgerald murmured. "I thought he'd be relieved to be going home."

"He will be, once we get there. Face is having a difficult time right now, processing memories, adjusting to his physical condition. He's been very depressed lately. I'm sure that's why he went AWOL and why he isn't happy to see us now."

"But he'll be all right… he'll adjust."

"Given time. Trust me, Captain, you did the right thing in calling us, rather than the Military. We'll take good care of him."

"I believe you. I just…"

Finch suddenly smiled. "You don't like seeing him upset. I know. Face has that effect on people, even on very slight acquaintance."

"So I broke the law and aided the escape of a Federal Fugitive, because I fell for a conman's charm?"

"You did it, because it's the right thing to do."

"Well, you'd better get him out of here before I decide it _wasn't_ the right thing. Both of you, just follow me and don't stop to chat."

They nodded understanding and left the interrogation room in Fitzgerald's wake. The little cavalcade attracted some attention as it passed through the squad room and lobby, but the captain's presence discouraged curiosity, and they reached the exit without incident. Fitzgerald murmured a farewell and watched them wheel Face down the access ramp to the van parked in the nearest handicapped space, his expression full of doubt. Then he turned back into the busy squad room and tried to push the whole incident out of his mind. It wouldn't work, but he had to try.

In the van, Face was studiously ignoring the doctor seated beside him, all his attention apparently focused on the window to his left. Finch watched him tuck the sleeping kitten more deeply into his coat and thought he understood his patient's gloomy state.

"Face."

The other man continued to ignore him.

"I'd like to talk to you, Face."

"Mm."

"What have you got in your coat?"

Face clutched the coat closed and turned his head farther away.

"You can show me. I won't take it away from you."

"Ngh. M-mine."

"Yes, it's yours, but I'd like to see it."

"M-make m-me give it… give it b-b…"

"Give it back?"

"Mm."

"Did you take it from someone?"

That got a response. Face turned on him, his eye open wide in distress, and cried, "No! F-find… _F-f-found!_ Cry-ingh… h-hungry… _H-help!_ "

"Of course you want to help. I understand that."

"M-must f-feed kitten."

"It's a kitten, then?"

"Mine!" Face insisted, still clutching the bundle to his midriff, hidden in the coat. "I f-found… I…"

"Face, it's all right. I won't take the kitten away from you. I just want to see it."

"S-see?"

"See. Just see."

Slowly, reluctantly, Face eased his grip on his hidden treasure and pulled it out of his clothing. Finch peered into the nest of fabric, careful not to touch it, and saw a tiny creature curled inside, sleeping. It was definitely a kitten, very young and very dirty, it's pale fur caked with mud. And it looked quite content at the moment.

"I think it's a girl," he commented, as the kitten squirmed and revealed more of its anatomy. "She's beautiful, Face. But she needs a bath. And we should stop at the vet on our way home, just to have her checked out. Dr. Schwartz's office is just down the street from the clinic."

"V-vet?"

"Veterinarian. That's a doctor for animals."

Face looked troubled at that.

"Face, we have to take her to the vet. We have to find out if it's even possible to raise a kitten this young by hand."

"M-my kitten." He pulled her back into his coat, away from Finch's critical gaze.

"Dr. Schwartz will tell us how to keep your kitten healthy. What to feed her. All right?"

Finally, Face nodded his agreement. When he settled back in the seat, his kitten tucked safely into his coat once more, he looked almost relaxed and far happier than he had since Finch and George had entered the room in the police station.

* * *

Doctor Finch sat at the desk in his cramped little office, contemplating the pile of paperwork on his desk with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. He was dog-tired, far more so than he ought to be, even after three days on call at Walter Reed. Perhaps it was his age catching up with him. Or perhaps he just had too much on his mind.

He was due to ship out for Afghanistan in two months. Two months to get the clinic in order, hand off any remaining cases at the hospital and brief his practice partner, Allen Howard, on the current patient load. Howard was due back from his current tour in less than two weeks, but that left them very little time for all that needed doing. And then there was the A-Team.

How could he explain Face and his friends to Allen? If McCready came through with a pardon in time, that would relieve him of one burden. But no pardon would justify months of lying to the military authorities and sheltering wanted men. He was confident that his fellow physician would recognize Face's claim to their help and support, but he was less confident that Hannibal would welcome yet another person in on the secret. Another potential security leak.

Hannibal's trust in Finch had always been a compromise. A delicate balance between his finely-honed sense of self-preservation and his determination to give his injured lieutenant every chance of recovery. So far, the balance had tipped in Finch's direction, because Face so obviously needed his expert help. But as Face's condition improved, the center threatened to shift.

It was already shifting, if Finch was any judge of the human psyche. Hannibal had accepted a mission, leaving Face behind while he went off with the team to try his hand at soldiering again. If they succeeded, they would find new confidence in themselves and their ability to control their own fates. If they failed… well, Finch didn't really entertain that possibility, so he didn't expend much effort trying to decide what the result would be. But succeed or fail, they had taken a significant step that could change everything about the situation and, most importantly, Face's future.

Which brought him back to the nagging question that obsessed his thoughts and distracted him from the myriad other things that clamored for his attention: What was best for Face?

Did he still belong here in the clinic? In a rehab facility that would prepare him for life in the outside world? On the run with his friends? In a cozy love-nest with Captain Sosa? And what solution would his friends accept? Because, in the end, Hannibal would decide what happened to Face, not Face himself or his doctors.

The door opened, interrupting his thoughts and bringing his eyes up from the litter on his desk. He saw a lanky figure in a battered leather jacket sidle into the room, followed quickly by an enormous black man with a mohawk, and his face softened into a twinkling smile.

"Hey, Doc," Murdock drawled, as he folded himself into a chair.

"Welcome back, Captain."

"Sorry about the delay," Hannibal said, as he entered last and shut the door. "It took a little longer than expected."

"These things usually do. How did it go?"

"Good." He hesitated, then temporized, "Good enough. Did Face miss us?"

"He asked for you a few times but not with any urgency. As we agreed, I didn't tell him where you'd gone."

"How's he doing?"

"Better. He had an adventure of his own that… brought him out of himself, I would say. Refocused his attention. And he made a new friend."

"What kind of adventure?" Murdock asked.

"He went for a stroll round the neighborhood." At their startled, alarmed looks, the doctor assured them, "Face is perfectly fine, so there's no point in getting yourselves into a state, now. I admit, we were quite worried when he went missing and turned out most of the staff to look for him, but it was actually the police who picked him up."

"The _police?!_ " Hannibal's alarm turned to anger, and he was half out of his seat when Finch held out a hand to calm him.

"As I said, he's fine. Relax, Hannibal."

The colonel subsided into his chair once more, glowering. "I thought we could trust you to keep him safe for a few days."

"And so you can."

"What happened? Did he just walk out and no one noticed?"

"Not quite." Finch gave them a brief description of Face's escape, exploration, and return. Then he smiled placidly and said, "In the end, it was a good thing. I won't say that he's completely at ease, but Face is starting to come to terms with his condition. He's more independent, more driven and less depressed than he was before you left. He's working hard on his therapies. And he's taking excellent care of his friend."

"What friend is this?" Murdock demanded suspiciously.

Finch laughed outright. "A kitten named Luna."

"A _kitten?_ "

"He found her in a park, starving in the rain, and rescued her."

"Face don't even like cats," B.A. protested.

"I wouldn't say that to him, if I were you. He's quite devoted to Luna, takes her with him everywhere, feeds her, cleans up after her and sleeps with her on his pillow. And I do mean _sleeps_ , which is something he hasn't done since he started to remember. Luna calms him."

Hannibal looked bemused, a half smile twitching at his lips. "Face with a kitten. This I gotta see."

Finch shrugged. "They're in PT right now."

"This kitten goes to therapy with him?"

"She goes _everywhere_ with him."

Murdock pushed himself abruptly to his feet. "D'you think Face'd be glad to see me? I want to say hi and meet Luna, but…"

"Yes, very glad."

"He threw me out, last time."

"Go on, Murdock. Say hello. Hannibal and I have some things to discuss, but we'll join you soon."

Murdock nodded and slouched out of the room, concealing his eagerness to get away from the office and find his friend. He was relieved that B.A. made no move to follow him and privately thanked the big corporal for his restraint. B.A. knew better than anyone how anxious Murdock had been to get back here, back to Face, throughout the mission and how badly he wanted some time alone with his friend.

The pilot paused at the door of the PT gym to glance through the window. He quickly spotted Face and George at one of benches. Face was trying to lift his right arm with a weight strapped to the wrist while George needled and encouraged him. On a table a few feet away, a tiny white kitten sat on its haunches, its head cocked curiously to one side, watching them. Murdock grinned and pushed through the door.

"Hey, Face."

Face's head turned in his direction but he did not pause in his efforts or soften his determined expression. "Murdock."

"Mind if I watch?"

"Nngh." He turned back to George and set his teeth, struggling to lift his arm.

Murdock moved up to the table and sat down. He recognized the stubbornness in the other man's face and didn't want to interrupt. This was a new attitude for Face. He had worked before, because people he liked and trusted told him to work. Now, it was clear to Murdock, he was working toward some internal goal of his own.

As Murdock folded his hands on the table top, all his attention on his friend and the battle he was waging against his own body, the kitten picked her way delicately across to him and sniffed at his fingers. He freed one hand to tickle her behind the ears, and she mewed at him. When he found the sweet spot on her neck, she began to purr.

Face heard her soft cry and let his arm drop to his side, now looking intently in Murdock's direction. George caught the change in his mood and asked, "We done for today, buddy?"

"Mm. You s-say."

"You've earned a break. Here, let me have those weights." The nurse loosened the weighted wrist band, freeing Face, and put a hand on his back to steady him as he rose to his feet.

Face crossed to the table and felt around till he located a chair. Then he dropped into it and held out his left hand to the kitten. She had abandoned Murdock the moment Face moved and now pushed happily against his hand to announce herself. Face smiled down at her, scooping her up and holding her against his chest. She was purring loudly, startling Murdock with the volume of noise such a small body could produce.

"Doc Finch said you had a new friend," Murdock commented.

"Luna." Face held out his handful of happy fur for Murdock's inspection. "M-means Moon."

"Yeah, it does." He studied the kitten more closely, seeing the faint gray stripes in her white fur and the pale blue eyes that so closely resembled Face's. She looked entirely lunar. "That's a good one. Did you come up with that yourself?"

"N-no. Vet."

"Huh?"

"V-vet g-gave her n-name."

"And you feed her and everything?"

"Mm."

Murdock eyed him thoughtfully and mused, "Y'know, Face, you seem a lot better. Happier."

Face shrugged his good shoulder and pulled Luna against his chest where he could feel her purring.

"And you're talking better. Or maybe it's just that I haven't heard you talking for a few days and I forgot."

Face didn't answer for a long moment. When he lifted his blind gaze to his friend, it was serious and a trifle wistful. "Wh-where did y-y… g-go?"

"Go? We didn't… I mean, we were just… You didn't want us around, so we gave you some space, is all."

"Where?" Face repeated firmly.

Murdock sighed. "California."

Confusion clouded his features. "C-cal…?"

"Home. Los Angeles. We… we had a mission, Face."

"M-mmm…"

"Mission. Work to do. People to help."

"M-misshh-ngh."

"Yeah." Murdock cocked his head, eyeing the other man intently, and ventured, "You know what I'm talking about, don't you? You remember."

Face shrugged again and his gaze skated away from Murdock. "S-some."

"Face, are you mad that we left? That we took a mission without you?" He could hear the pleading in his voice as he said it and hoped that Face couldn't - or couldn't interpret it, if he did.

"I…" Face visibly struggled for words, but more because he couldn't choose them than because he couldn't form them. "I d-don't n-nngh…"

"That's okay. You don't have to know. But believe me, buddy, we didn't do it to hurt you."

Once again, his shoulder twitched in a silent expression of discomfort.

"I'm sorry. I didn't want to go, but you didn't want me around and I thought… I thought it would be better to let you work stuff out on your own while we…" He petered out lamely, then swallowed the lump in his throat and asked, "Do you want me here, now? 'Cause if you don't…"

"Murdock." Face slid a hand across the table to find and clasp Murdock's arm. "B-best friend." Suddenly, a smile blazed across his face, and Murdock's doubts burned away in the heat of it.

"Now you got two best friends," the pilot said, chuckling in relief. "Me and Luna."

Face's smile widened, touching his right eye with light. "T-two."

* * *

Sosa slid the large, crisp envelope from her briefcase, relishing the drama of the moment and the looks of disbelief on the faces of the men confronting her. In another second, they would finally know that she was a force to be reckoned with. They would have to eat their words, stuff their suspicions where the sun didn't shine, and admit that she - Charissa Sosa - had accomplished something that was beyond the powers of even His Holiness Hannibal Smith. She pulled out the piece of stiff parchment with two fingers and laid it before Dr. Finch with a flourish.

"One Presidential Pardon. Signed, sealed and delivered."

Finch stared at the document in front of him in silence, then held it out wordlessly toward Hannibal.

"Oh, I have a copy for Smith, as well," Sosa said much too sweetly. "Of course, the original is on file with the Justice Department, but all the relevant people have copies. _And_ Colonel Smith." With that, she pulled a second copy from the envelope and handed it to Hannibal with a poisonously sweet smile.

He took it with a word of thanks that rather deflated her theatrics but did nothing to diminish her triumph. His eyes scanned it briefly, and when B.A. murmured a question, he nodded.

"It's legit. Face is free."

"I gotta tell Murdock!" B.A. said eagerly. He hesitated at the door, one hand on the knob, and frowned over at his commanding officer. "How about Face? Can I tell him?"

"Do it. He should hear the good news, even if it doesn't mean much to him."

"No!" Sosa blurted out, halting the corporal once more, before he could get out the door. "I'm going to tell him!"

Hannibal looked at her in exasperation, then nodded to B.A., dismissing him. "Go on, Big Man. Do the honors."

B.A. slipped out of the office to the sound of Sosa's hiss. "How dare you? _How dare you?!_ "

"Bring it down a notch, Captain. The rest of the building doesn't need to witness your hissy fit."

"That's rich, coming from the man who nearly brought the roof down and scared Face out of his wits the last time I was here!"

"I'm not the one who scared Face! That was you and your boss! Pawing at him like a…"

"My boss, who just _pardoned_ him, thanks to me!"

Finch sighed and buried his face in his hands for a moment. When he looked up again, the combatants were squared off, glaring at each other from a distance of about four inches. He had the sudden, impossible thought that they were about to rip each other's clothes off and tumble to the floor in a violent kiss. The image this conjured forced a laugh from him that shattered the tension and brought their fulminating gazes around to him.

"Sit down, both of you," he said, still chuckling.

Surprisingly, then obeyed, dropping into chairs facing the desk. They very carefully did not look at each other, and they edged the chairs farther apart as they sat.

"Must we have the same argument, over and over again? Can't you two find some common ground? You both want the same thing…"

"I don't think so," Hannibal snapped.

"You want Face to heal. You want him well and strong and happy. Yes?"

The combatants shot each other a glowering look, then nodded in unison.

"Then I suggest we work together to accomplish this end."

"I've done my part," Sosa insisted bitterly. "I got him his pardon and I stayed away, as you asked…"

"Ordered," Hannibal corrected her.

"The point is, I stayed away. But he's had months to recuperate. He must be stronger now."

"In some ways."

"Strong enough to meet new people, or old friends, without suffering emotional trauma?"

Finch regarded her thoughtfully for a moment, then shifted his gaze to Hannibal, brows raised in query. "The pardon is signed. It can't hurt to tell her, now."

"Tell me what?"

"I suppose not," Hannibal muttered.

Turning back to Sosa, the doctor said, earnestly, "Face does very well with new people, these days. The problem is with the old friends. You see, he's getting his memory back."

"He's… he's _what?!_ " She gaped at the doctor, her face blank with shock. "He's _remembering?!_ "

"Yes."

Sosa was suddenly on her feet, every muscle tensed as if to pounce. "I have to see him! You can't stop me, now!"

"Sit down, Captain."

"He knows me! Or he will, soon enough, if I can just talk to him!"

"Sit down."

She braced her hands on his desk, bringing her face close to his where he could see the wild, desperate hope in it, and snarled, "What's your excuse this time? That he remembers me _too well?_ "

" _Sit. Down._ "

Responding to the authority in his voice, Sosa sank back into her chair, but her poised, coiled posture told the two men that she would be on her feet and moving at the first opportunity. Finch eyed her with a measure of sympathy.

"I'm sorry, Captain. I know this is frustrating for you."

"It's a damned sight more than that."

"I understand. But have you considered how it feels to Face?"

"What do you mean?"

"When the memories started coming back, he had to confront just how much his life has changed. How much he has changed. Can you imagine how that feels?"

"Jesus," she breathed.

Hannibal eyed her sourly for a moment, then remarked, "I think she finally gets it."

"He's regained bits and pieces of his years as a soldier, his friends, the missions. And what happened to him in Iraq."

"Oh, God. He remembers _that_?"

"He dreams about it," Hannibal said, the hostility notably absent from his manner. "He hasn't put all the pieces together yet, but he sees it in his dreams and wakes up in a sweating panic. He'd nearly stopped sleeping all together, till he found the kitten."

"The… what?" She turned a stunned gaze on him, her confusion deepening by the moment.

"The kitten. He found her in the park and rescued her. I know it's weird, but she calms him. Helps him sleep."

"Therapy animals are very popular around here," Finch interjected.

Sosa shook her head helplessly. "I thought there was no chance."

"We all did," Hannibal murmured. "We weren't lying to you, or to McCready. We thought the Face we knew before was gone for good. In some ways, it would be easier if he were."

It was a measure of how thrown she was by this news that Charissa did not challenge his statement but merely asked, "Why?"

"He's going through Hell. He's talking better, thinking better, but he's in pain like I've never seen. And none of us can fix it."

"Maybe I could."

The colonel looked thoughtfully at her, genuinely weighing her words. "Maybe. If he asks for you."

"He hasn't?" Hannibal shook his head. "You aren't lying to me, Smith, to keep me away from him?"

"He hasn't mentioned anyone from his past, except the team."

"If I saw him, talked to him…"

"Please, Captain. Please. I'm asking you, soldier to soldier, as someone who cares about Face as much as you do, let him be. Let him heal in his own time."

"And if he asks for me?"

"Then you can see him, and welcome."

She regarded him for a long moment, distrust and sympathy warring in her, then she said with a hint of suspicion in her voice, "What will you do, when he chooses me over you?"

"You're so sure he will?"

"Just answer the question. Will you let him go?"

"Face is an adult with the right to make his own choices. Even if he doesn't use his brain to make them, as is so often the case with him."

That final sour statement twisted her face with annoyance as she got to her feet and picked up her briefcase. "I'm going to hold you to that. And when Face makes his choice, you'll be laughing around the other side of that foul cigar."

"Well, that's a bridge we may never have to cross."

"You tell yourself that." She nodded curtly to Finch and headed for the door, calling a final taunt over her shoulder. "I'll be back. You can count on it."

As the door shut behind her, Finch sighed and rubbed his eyes. "I wish you could handle her more gently, Hannibal. You seem intent on antagonizing her."

"She gets under my skin."

"I noticed. But, she has a point. If Face chooses to let her into his life, you'll have to make some choices of your own."

"Oh, there's no question. I'll grit my teeth and smile."

"And Face will be free."

A wide, relieved grin spread over Hannibal's face. "He will!" Slouching back in his chair and stretching out his legs to cross his ankles, he pulled a cigar from his breast pocket and clamped it between his teeth. "Sosa's tantrum drove it right out of my head! Face is pardoned and safe. Free."

"I think this calls for a toast." Finch pulled a bottle of brandy from the bottom drawer of his desk, followed by two glasses. When he and Hannibal each held a glass of the amber liquid, he lifted his and said, "To Captain Sosa."

"To El Diablo and her interfering ways!"

* * *

Face couldn't sleep. He had been lying in bed for hours, listening to the quiet creakings, clankings and rustlings made by the clinic at night, poised as if for some event that never happened. Luna was asleep, curled warmly against his neck, a softly-breathing ball of contentment. He wished he could relax so completely, take out all his bones and turn off his brain the way the cat did. But to his infinite frustration, he was not a cat and he couldn't simply switch off.

With a sigh, he rolled onto his side, dislodging Luna in the process. She awoke with a mew of annoyance, then stood up and stretched luxuriously. In true cat fashion, she was suddenly as completely awake as she had been completely asleep a moment before. And she was feeling playful.

Her demands for attention and attempts to wrench the buttons from the front of his shirt dragged another sigh from Face. He sat up, tumbling the kitten to the mattress, and got to his feet. He was intimately familiar with the room and moved easily through it with no mishaps. He found his dressing gown hanging on a hook inside the closet, just where it was supposed to be, and shrugged it on over his light clothing. Then he padded back over to the bed and fished his slippers out from under it. Scooping up Luna, he dropped her into one wide pocket of the dressing gown and headed for the door.

This was a familiar routine to Face. In the depths of his worst depression, he had often prowled the hallways at night and mapped out most of the clinic in his head. He had quickly learned that he could wedge his slippers between the door and the latch, keeping it open and unlocked. Then he could wander at will and get back into his room without alerting the staff. He didn't know that a light on a board at the nurses' station warned them that his door was open, or that they all conspired to help him break the rules. He didn't know that he was their favorite patient, and they would let him get away with nearly anything that didn't present a danger to him or the other patients. He only knew that, if he propped open his door with his slippers, it would still be open when he returned from his midnight stroll.

Pausing to jam the slippers into the door, he tested it to make sure it hadn't closed, then he set off down the hallway, trailing the fingers of his left hand along the wall for guidance. He knew where he was going and didn't hesitate at the first turn. Down hallways lined with locked, blank doors, around corners, down a couple of steps, he moved unerringly toward his destination. Then, abruptly, he stepped through an open door into the bright bustle of the main kitchen.

For a heartbeat, no one noticed his arrival. Then a familiar voice called out, " _Hola,_ Faceman!"

Face grinned at the sound of approaching footsteps. "Ed."

"Good to see you, _muchacho_." Eduardo, the head cook, gave him a friendly punch in the shoulder - thoughtfully choosing the left - then caught his arm and started piloting him through the organized chaos. "Been a long time."

"C-couldn't sleep."

At that point, Luna poked her head out of his pocket and mewed for attention. Eduardo grimaced at her and said, "You gonna get me fired, you bring that cat in my nice, clean kitchen."

"Booth," Face said firmly.

Eduardo chuckled at the familiar exchange and led Face to a booth set in the right hand wall, well away from the food prep area, that looked like it had been plucked from a '50s diner. Face slid behind the table and settled himself on the red vinyl cushions, while Luna climbed out of his pocket and prowled around on the seat, sniffing curiously in all the corners.

"You know the rules, Face. She stays in the booth."

"Mmm."

"You hungry?"

"Nngh. N-no." Face looked hopefully up at him. "Coffee?"

The cook laughed. "You be awake all night, you drink that stuff. I bring you something special that'll help you sleep."

Face just smiled, as Eduardo hurried away, back into his domain. He had no idea what the cooks did with such energy and purpose when all the patients were asleep, but he loved the busyness of the night kitchen. It soothed him and made him feel that he was touching real life, if only from the fringes.

A few minutes later, Eduardo returned with a plate in each hand. He plunked one down in front of Face and placed the other on the wide bench beside him.

"A midnight snack for you, my friend, and a little treat for your lady."

"N-not hungry," Face reminded him.

"You need to eat. Too skinny."

Face gazed dubiously down at his plate. "What is it?"

He didn't like eating in front of people, except a few individuals he knew and trusted implicitly, and he always approached food with suspicion. Beside him, Luna was showing no such hesitation. She found a small saucer full of canned tuna and began to devour it.

"An Eduardo Special. Fried egg sandwich, with green peppers and onions. Just pick it up and eat."

Still frowning, Face located half of the sandwich, picked it up, and took a small bite. His frown dissolved into a delighted smile and he took another, much larger bite."

"Good?"

"Mmm."

Eduardo slid into the booth across from him, propped his elbows on the table, and watched Face eat with a distinctly smug look. "I been hearing rumors about you today, _amigo_. Everybody talking."

"Mmm?" Face asked, through a mouthful of fried egg and peppers.

"They say you got a fancy signed paper from _El Presidente_ himself."

Face shrugged and kept eating.

"You been pardoned."

"P-pardoned." Face set down the remainder of his sandwich and confronted the other man, his frown back in place. "Bosco said p-pardoned."

"Why so worried? This is a good thing."

"D-don't know. I d-don't…"

"Hey," Eduardo leaned closer to him and spoke in an earnest tone, "it means you're free."

"Free?"

"They can't put you in prison no more. You can go where you want and you don't have to hide."

"Go where?"

"Anywhere! Or nowhere. Point is, my man, you choose." Eduardo caught his wrist and gave it a squeeze. "You not a fugitive no more."

"F-fugitive." Face turned that word over in his mind, remembering another time when he'd heard it and struggling to attach some meaning to it. He knew it was important, knew it dominated his life in some way, but he couldn't grasp how.

"Fugitive." He glanced up at Eduardo and ventured, "Criminal?"

"Where you hear that word?" the cook demanded.

"P-police."

"Huh? Oh, right, you were picked up by the cops that day you went AWOL. They said you were a criminal?"

"Mmm. Is that f-fugitive?"

Eduardo scratched his head and frowned. "Kinda. A criminal is a guy who breaks the law. Does something bad that could get him locked up. A fugitive is a guy they tried to lock up, who got away. The fugitive runs and the cops try to catch him. See?"

"Mmm."

He sounded dubious, so Eduardo tried again. "You remember the day you ran off?"

Face smiled fleetingly. "F-found Luna." At the sound of her name, the kitten leapt lightly onto the table and rubbed up against his hand. He began to scratch her behind the ears automatically.

"Yeah. But when you went missing, Doc Finch and the rest were, like, crazed. They turned out the whole place to look for you."

"S-scared I h-hurt mys-self," Face offered.

"Nah, they weren't scared of that. Well, maybe a little. You were kind of a mess when you got back. But they were really scared you be caught by the police, just like you were, and get thrown in jail when they figured out who you were. Only you didn't get locked up. You charmed 'em into letting you go. Nurse George says that's what you always did - before you got hurt and ended up here. You'd smile at people and make 'em do whatever you wanted. And he says you can still do it, only you don't _know_ you doing it." He cocked his head and gazed at Face, a smile lurking in his eyes. "Guess ol' George is right."

Face looked a question at him.

"Ain't no one else in this place I make a plate of food at one AM, much less an Eduardo Special."

Face grinned, thereby proving Eduardo's point without realizing it, and said through a fresh mouthful of Eduardo Special, "M-my friend." He chewed for a moment, then ventured, " _Am-migo_."

The cook laughed aloud at that and slapped a hand on the table, startling Luna. "You gonna learn Spanish before you figure out English? Smart man. I am your _amigo_ , Faceman, and don't you forget it. You need anything, any time, you come to Eduardo. That goes for when you leave this place, too."

"Th-thanks," Face said, with another incandescent smile.

* * *

The enclosed yard at the back of the clinic offered patients a protected space in which to exercise and enjoy the fresh air. It also boasted a small picnic area, surrounded by flowerbeds, with a few wooden tables and chairs under a trellis covered with flowering vines. In the sultry late summer weather, Hannibal and Face had the yard mostly to themselves. A couple of patients were playing croquet on a patch of grass at the far end, but they paid no attention to the two men seated in the shade close by the building. Luna was exploring the flowerbeds and occasionally returning to make sure that Face hadn't moved.

Face lounged back in his chair, his head tilted up, his blank eyes behind their dark glasses seeming to fix on a particularly large cluster of purple flowers that nodded lazily above him. He looked relaxed and Hannibal hated to disturb him. But they had important business to discuss - nothing less than the future of the A-Team - and he couldn't put it off any longer. Shifting forward in his chair, he cleared his throat and waited for Face to turn his hidden gaze on him.

After so many months of staring at a blank, white bandage and one empty eye, Hannibal found this more normal, and yet more inscrutable look a bit unnerving. He cleared his throat again, just to gain time, then said, "Did Doc Finch tell you about his plans?"

Face thought carefully about that, aligning Hannibal's words with all the things his doctor had said to him recently. He was mentally gaining ground every day - establishing new logical connections, fitting his fragmentary memories into all that he had learned since his injury, discovering the ability to reason - but it cost him an effort. When Hannibal asked a seemingly simple question, he had to sort through a file of thoughts and memories to figure out what he wanted. Then he had to dredge up a response with his still-clumsy mental apparatus.

Finally he arrived at what he thought was the correct answer. "G-going to Af- Afgh-ngh. Afghan…"

"Afghanistan. Yes. He's leaving soon."

"Mmm." That was his affirmative noise - the one that said he understood but was unwilling to offer further comment until he knew where Hannibal was headed.

"With him leaving, you have some decisions to make."

"Go or stay?"

"He talked to you about that, too?"

Face shook his head - a new response for him that seemed unconscious, a remnant of past behavior, since he couldn't see physical gestures himself.

"What exactly did he tell you?"

"Says b-benngh…" Face broke off in frustration and tried again, speaking very carefully and precisely. "I am b-better." He tapped the left lens of his sunglasses. "Last s-surgrr… surge…"

"Surgery," Hannibal supplied.

"Mm. Eye done. H-hand fixed." He held up his right hand in illustration. It was, indeed, as fixed as it was going to get, with the index and middle fingers still paralyzed but the rest of it working something close to normally. "All f-fixed as… as m-m…" He struggled for a moment, then once more spoke in slow, distinct syllables to get the whole phrase out. "As much as he c-can."

"So he thinks he's done all that he can for you."

"Up to m-me, now. L-learn, talk, rem-memb-r…"

"Did he say where you should do all this?"

"Wh-where I want."

"Face," Hannibal leaned forward still more, trying to communicate reassurance along with his sense of urgency, "do you _want_ to be here in the clinic?"

"Not safe n-now."

"You'd be safe. Let's be clear about that. You were pardoned specifically so you would be safe here, no matter what happened to the rest of us. So you can stay, if this is where you want to be."

"You n-not safe."

"No." The colonel let that sink in, then went on in as calm and undemanding a tone as he could manage, "The rest of us can't stay here without Finch's protection. We have to go back underground before he ships out for Afghanistan. And the truth is, kid, we're ready to go."

Face looked away from him, toward the lawn and the croquet players. "M-missions."

"That's a big part of it." He settled back in his chair and stared down at his hands. " I'm sorry, Face. I know this isn't easy for you. But with Doc Finch leaving and your rehab going so well, it's time for all of us to make some hard choices. We can't stay here forever. We need to get back in action, and this seems like the perfect time."

"W-we means you, not me."

"Definitely not you."

When Face continued to gaze stubbornly away from him, his jaw set with anger or distress, Hannibal demanded, "You didn't really expect to run missions again, did you?"

Face shrugged.

"Jesus, Face, is this really what you've been thinking since Murdock told you about our last job? That you want back in?"

"M-my team," Face murmured. "My home."

Hannibal swore under his breath and covered his eyes with one hand, surrendering to his own frustration and disappointment for a moment. "I know that's how you feel, and so do I. God knows, I'd give anything to have you back at my side! Watching my sixes, driving me crazy with your damned improvising, screwing up my plans! But I can't put you in harm's way again. I _can't_."

Silence and stillness met this declaration, dragging a weary sigh from Hannibal. "You have to understand. You remember enough to know what our missions are like, and you know you can't do that kind of work anymore."

"I know."

"Then why are you making me say these things?"

"S-scared."

"You're scared? Of what?"

"Not on the team, wh-what am I? Wh-where do… do I…?"

"Face." He waited until his friend relented and turned his gaze on him again. "You're always on my team. Always. My XO, my trusted friend, the best soldier it's ever been my privilege to fight beside. _Always_. Do you understand?"

Slowly, reluctantly, Face nodded.

"That's why I can't go through another year like this last one. Watching you bleed out in that desert, knowing I'd done it to you… It damned near destroyed me. All of us. We survived because you were too stubborn to actually die. Now we have a chance to be a team again, to right some wrongs and save some innocent people, but we can't do it without you."

"You s-said…"

"I said you can't join us on the missions, and you can't. But that doesn't mean you aren't part of the team."

"A use-less part."

"A vital part. But a… a non-combatant one." He shifted forward again, his urgency returning. "And that's the point, kid. As a non-combatant, you don't have to be on hand for every battle. You can be anywhere you need to be, some place safe and comfortable, where we can find you when we need you."

"Here."

"If that's what you want, but _only_ if that's what you want. You get to choose."

"You want me h-h…"

"No! Forget what you think I want. I'm telling you this is entirely your choice. You decide whether you want to stay here, to come with us, to find a home for yourself away from either the clinic or the team. Hell, you can even play house with El Diablo, if that's what you want!"

"El Diab… ?"

"Charissa Sosa. Your old girlfriend. Remember her?"

Face nodded absently, wearing a troubled expression. He sat and thought for a minute or two, sorting through everything Hannibal had said, then he lifted his gaze to his commander's face. "Wh-what do you want, H-hannibal?"

"What do I want _you_ to do?"

"Mmm."

"I could tell you that, but it would defeat the purpose of this conversation." Face just looked at him, waiting for an explanation, and Hannibal sighed. "Doc Finch, Sosa, even B.A. and Murdock, they all expect me to tell you what to do. But I'm trying very hard not to do that."

"I n-need to know."

"Why?"

"Help me ch-choose."

Hannibal studied him in silence, weighing his few words and the meaning he guessed was behind them. Finally, he sighed again and said, "I want you to come with us."

Again, Face waited for more.

"I need my team together. We can do the job without you - this last mission proved that - but it isn't the same. It isn't right. You should be with us, where you belong, contributing any way you can to the missions but mostly just keeping our team and our family together."

"If I c-come, you have to… nngh…" He broke off, searching for the words, then finished, "t-take care of m-me."

"Of course, but you won't need us for long. You're almost ready to take care of yourself." Seeing the scowl on his face, Hannibal asked, gently, "What's wrong, kid? What are you trying to tell me?"

"Nngh. You… tired. Need to leave. Need your l-lives back."

"That's true, but…"

Face silenced him with a raised hand. "Me, too."

"You want your life back." Hannibal felt suddenly, infinitely tired. "And you're afraid that if you come with us, none of us can have that?"

He nodded.

"We'd be forced to give up our old lives for you, and you'd never find the courage to strike out on your own with us hovering over you?"

Another nod.

"Okay, but let me ask you this, Face. If you weren't afraid, would you want to be with the team? Or would you rather be on your own?"

The look Face gave him was incredulous, as if he didn't believe Hannibal even had to ask. "With m-my team."

A smile broke over Hannibal's face. "That's all I needed to know." Pushing himself to his feet, he offered a hand to his friend and said in a much lighter tone, "Collect that blasted animal of yours and let's go talk to the guys. We can work this out, kid. We can find an answer, as long as we do it as a team."

* * *

So intent was she on her own thoughts, Charissa did not at first hear the tinny music emanating from her jacket pocket. She was too busy brooding over her latest bulletin from the clinic in Fairfax and the news it contained to pay attention to anything as trivial as a cell phone call. Then Lt. Brooks, the young woman who walked beside her through the endless corridors of the Pentagon, glanced over at her and asked, "Is that Steely Dan I hear?"

Jerked back to the present, Charissa heard the familiar music and dug into her pocket for the phone. Out of habit, she checked the caller ID, though it could be only one person. Finch. As she hit the button to open the line, she wondered why she kept this particular phone and, worse still, why she had programmed it to play that song when Dr. Finch called. Was it just misplaced nostalgia? Or was she turning into a masochist?

"This is Sosa."

She knew someone was on the line – she could hear him breathing – but he didn't speak for a moment, and she felt a flash of annoyance. "Who is this?"

An agonizingly familiar voice answered her. "It's m-me."

Charissa's eyes flew open in surprise and she blurted out, "Jesus!" before she remembered that she was not alone.

"It's Face," he added, helpfully.

"I… I didn't expect…" Making an effort to collect herself, she ducked into the doorway of a convenient Ladies room and motioned for Lt. Brooks to go on without her, mouthing _It's personal_ to the curious woman. When she was sure the bathroom was otherwise empty and she could speak without being overheard, she asked, more calmly, "Where are you, Face?"

"At the clinic." He paused for a moment, then said, in a hesitant way that made her throat ache in sympathy, "I want to… to t-talk. M-meet me?"

"Of course. I'll be there in…"

"Not here," he cut in. "The park. Do you kn-now… park?

"Yes, it's right across the street from the clinic."

"Mm. Meet me there."

"What time?"

"I don't know. Eat lunch, meet by d-ducks."

"I'll be there!" Before she could say more, the line went dead.

Charissa slowly lowered the phone and stared at it, waiting. Any second now Hannibal would call her, full of bluster and fury, and demand that she keep her evil claws out of his friend. Or it would be Murdock, frighteningly sane and calm, telling her that Face was on heavy medication and making random phone calls to strangers, setting up assignations in the park. Or, worst and most convincing, Dr. Finch would inform her that Smith and the others had taken Face away from the clinic, out of his care, and vanished into the urban underground where she would never see him again.

But the phone did not ring, and she began to hope, very cautiously, that the call from Face was real. He did want to see her. He would meet her in the park by the duck pond. She would finally have a few precious minutes alone with him and the chance to tell him…

What? How she felt? The problem with that was that she didn't _know_ how she felt and was not at all sure that she'd tell Face if she did. For months she had struggled to reach him, and every time Smith or Murdock blocked her way, she fought all the harder. But she had never stopped to ask herself why.

Now, with Face's soft, halting words still fresh in her ears and the chance to see him again only hours away, she had to ask. Why did she want to see him so badly? What did she expect from him?

She expected him to want her again, to turn to her, to choose _her_ over his teammates. That much she could freely admit. And she expected Hannibal Smith to go ballistic when he did, a thought that filled her with hot, fierce pleasure. But when she was done tormenting Smith, what then? Did she want Templeton Peck for her lover, her friend, her husband, her… pet?

That's what Hannibal accused her of wanting. And sometimes – when she tried to picture Face blind, partially crippled, unable to speak or to remember most of his life – that's what she saw. A wounded animal turning to her for care and affection. Sometimes the picture had a poignant quality to it that tempted her, then she'd remember Face as he was when they were lovers, and she'd know that seeing him so diminished would break her heart. And yet, she had run from that old Face, rather than give him the love he had asked of her. Were things so different now? Did she love him so much more? And which Face did she truly love – the damaged one that needed her, or the one that frightened and challenged her?

She honestly did not know, but she was sure of one thing. She wanted to make the choice herself, not have it forced on her by the likes of Hannibal Smith.

Charissa arrived at the park by noon, knowing that Face wouldn't be there that early but unable to keep away. She bought a pretzel from a street vendor and ate it while she wandered the gravel paths through carefully manicured trees. Then she made her way to the south entrance and found a bench where she could watch the façade of the clinic across the street without being seen herself.

It was more than an hour later when she saw them crossing the street. Murdock walked a pace ahead, with Face's left hand holding his upper arm. Face moved easily enough with his friend as a guide and he looked fit, if a bit too thin. His hair had largely grown back and, with his slight scruff of beard and stylish dark glasses, he might have passed for the man she remembered so vividly. Then the little things began to intrude on her notice. The stiff, awkward angle of his right arm. His pronounced limp. The odd way he tilted his head, as if trying to catch a glimpse of something from the corner of his eye. Once she saw them, they were impossible to ignore or dismiss.

Suddenly he smiled, reacting to something Murdock had said, and Charissa felt as if a mule had just kicked her in the chest.

God, he was beautiful! She had forgotten – forced herself to forget – had dwelled in her mind on the damage done to him, rather than on the incredible power of his presence and his smile. He turned her bones to water and her brain to mush. He overwhelmed her.

She was about to push through the protecting screen of leaves and confront the two men on the path, when it occurred to her that Face might not want Murdock to know about their meeting. He had said to meet at the duck pond, not at the gate, so maybe he had a plan for ditching his escort.

Keeping to the grass, where she could dodge behind trees as needed, she followed them down the path to the pond. Murdock was talking steadily, though too low for her to make out his words, and Face was listening in distracted silence. In spite of that one, brilliant smile, he looked tired and rather sad.

 _I'll fix that_ , Charissa thought, as she edged behind a conveniently large bush.

They stopped at the bench where Charissa had eaten her lunch, and Murdock helped Face sit down.

"Want me to get us some coffee?" the pilot asked.

Face shook his head. "W-want to sit."

"Sounds good." Murdock started to sit down beside him, but Face stopped him with a raised hand.

"Alone. Please."

A frown darkened Murdock's face, but he did not protest. "You okay, Face?"

"Too much noise. Fuss. Need quiet."

"Yeah." Murdock touched his shoulder affectionately, and Face smiled up at him, but the strain did not leave his features. "Okay, I'll head back and see what Hannibal's got planned for tomorrow. You enjoy the quiet. How long d'ya need, buddy? Ten minutes? Fifteen?"

Face nodded and made a visible effort to force out the difficult word. "F-fift… Fift…"

"Fifteen. I got it." Pulling a cell phone from his pocket, Murdock placed it firmly in Face's left hand and wrapped his fingers around it. "Hit the 2 if you need me."

Face ran his thumb over the surface of the phone, finding the raised buttons, and nodded absently. "Thanks."

With that, the pilot finally pried himself away from his friend and loped off down the path. Charissa waited until he had disappeared around a corner, then counted to twenty slowly, just to be sure. Finally, she decided that the coast was clear, and she stepped out of the bushes onto the path.

"Face?"

He lifted his head at the sound of her voice, tilting it in that odd way, then got to his feet and smiled slightly. "C-Charisss…"

Something inside of her broke at the sound of her name stumbling so painfully on his lips, and she suddenly knew what she wanted. Warmth and triumph flooded her, filling her with certainty and driving out caution. Crossing to him in two hasty strides, she reached to catch his head between her hands and pulled his mouth against hers. He did not pull away, but neither did he respond to her kiss. He simply stood there, as if trapped in her clasp, and waited for her to release him.

She broke the kiss and gazed at him, her eyes smoky with desire and her body melting unconsciously against his. "God, I missed you, Face," she murmured. Then she fastened her lips to his in another, more demanding kiss.

This time, Face reacted. He twisted his head away and said, "Please d-don't."

Sosa took this as uncertainty, rather than outright rejection, and leaned more intimately against him. "I've been trying to see you for months. Ever since you came home from Iraq. But I couldn't get past Smith."

"I know."

"They promised they'd call, if you asked for me, but I knew it was just Smith's way of getting rid of me."

His hand moved up to find her wrist, and he tugged gently. "Charissa…"

"I should have known you'd find a way to reach me, once you started to remember!"

"Stop." He pulled in earnest now, breaking her grip and forcing her to drop her hands. "S-stop."

She gazed intently at him, her face hard with the effort of hiding her embarrassment. "You do remember, don't you? That's why you called."

"Some. A little." He hesitated, looking suddenly grimmer, and added, "Enough."

"You remembered the cell number," she insisted, nettled by his distant manner.

He shook his head. "Doc Finch l-let me use his ph-phone."

"Because Smith wouldn't make the call," she said accusingly.

"I didn't t-tell Hannibal."

Utterly confused now, she stepped back and sank onto the bench, frowning up at him. "So you did want to see me alone. Why?"

Guided by her voice, Face located the bench and sat beside her. "To talk."

"About what?"

He cocked his head, trying to see her through the shadows in his ruined eye. "We're leaving. Tomorrow."

"Finch told me. He also said that your surgery was a success." She eyed the dark glasses with some trepidation and added, doubtfully, "How does it look?"

For the first time since she had greeted him, Face smiled. "You t-tell me," he quipped and pushed the glasses up on his forehead.

For a stunning moment, Charissa thought that it had all been a joke, that Face had never been injured, never been blinded, and that all the bandages and operations had only been some kind of cruel game. Then she registered the blankness in the perfect, pale blue eye fixed on her and felt her stomach tighten. The injury was real. The bandages, the operations, the misery and helplessness of his friends – they were real. It was only that beautiful eye that wasn't.

Very slowly, she lifted a hand to touch his cheek. When she looked beyond the marvel of his eye, she could see that the curve of bone around it was not quite smooth and that the traces of a wicked scar still decorated his temple. Whoever had reconstructed his face had done a marvelous job, but nothing could completely erase the violence that had been done to it. He was whole and beautiful again, but he was changed. Dimmed, just a little.

"It's amazing. I'd never know it wasn't real, if only…"

"It worked?" He smiled again, crookedly, and settled the glasses back in place. Then his smile died and he looked away, toward the ducks he couldn't see, and his expression turned melancholy.

Charissa found that she had no idea what to say. They sat in silence for a few minutes until, aware that they had only a limited amount of time before Murdock returned, she dredged up the only topic of conversation she could think of.

"So you asked me here to tell me you're leaving?"

"To say g-goodbye," Face murmured.

"It doesn't have to be goodbye. You're a free man, now. I saw the pardon with my own eyes, signed by the Secretary of Defense and the President. You don't have to go on the run again."

"Where else?" he asked, as if he'd asked the same question many times and already knew the answer.

"Anywhere! Anywhere you like!" She swallowed once to clear the sudden constriction from her throat and offered, "Come with me."

A humorless smile tilted one corner of his mouth, and he shook his head. "D-don't want m-me."

"You've been listening to Smith!" she snapped.

He shook his head again. When he spoke, it was slowly and deliberately, and with barely a stumble. "I don't need Hannibal to think for m-me. I decide what I want."

"Then quit being an idiot and _take_ what you want!"

"What?"

"Me! Us, together!"

"Ngh. No."

"Why, because I left you? I'm sorry about that, Face! I admit I was scared, and I acted like a fool. But now…" She reached out touch him, sliding her hands around his neck and burying them in his hair. "Oh, Face, forget everything that happened back then! Think about what we can have now, our future, and forget the past!"

"I d-don't want to forg-get. Ever." He clasped her arms with both hands, moving his right for the first time, and tried to push her away, but she clung stubbornly to him. "Charissa. P-please don't."

Finally, he broke her clasp and drew her arms down, but he did not let go of her. His uneven clasp was gentle, and when she looked in his face, she thought she saw longing there. "L-leaving tomorrow. With H-hannibal."

"Don't go! _Stay with me!_ "

"I don't w-want to."

"Why? Because I hurt you so badly the last time?"

"I'm s-sorry, Charissa."

He stood up and held out his hand to her. When she took it, he pulled her easily to her feet. He would have let go, but she moved quickly against him, slipping her arms around his waist. Even as she clung to him she could feel him drawing away from her.

For a terrifying moment, she considered begging, telling him that she loved him and would do anything to keep him with her, but then reason reasserted itself. Detaching herself from him with all the dignity she could muster, she stiffened her spine and confronted him with an aloofness to match his own.

"I guess that's it, then. Take care of yourself, Face."

"I will. G-goodbye."

She was still trying to decide how best to extricate herself – what grand, dismissive gesture would impress upon him how completely unmoved she was by what had passed between them today – when she heard an unwelcome shout from down the path.

"Face! Hey, Face!"

She twisted around to see Murdock running toward them at full speed. Face lifted his hand in a casual wave, and Murdock abruptly slowed. Charissa stood stiffly, waiting for him, deeming it cowardly to slink away. He arrived at a jog, still breathing a little hard from his sprint, and slowed to a stop a few paces away. His eyes jumped from Face to Charissa, his face twitching with uncertainty.

"What's up?" he asked at last.

"Just t-talking," Face assured him.

"You want some more time? I can go… I dunno… walk somewhere," he offered, flapping a hand vaguely toward the nearest hiking path.

"No. We're done."

Charissa felt her face go tight with hurt and anger. She fixed a basilisk glare on Murdock and said, through her teeth, "Captain Murdock."

"Captain Sosa," he replied, pity in his eyes.

That was the last straw for Charissa. Whirling on one heel, she spat, "You two make a lovely couple! You deserve each other!" and stalked off down the path toward the East gate. She did not look back, so she did not see Face take Murdock's arm and start slowly toward the South gate with him. Nor did she hear the pilot humming _El Diablo_ under his breath or Face's soft chuckle in answer.

 _To be continued…_


	3. Part 3: Home

_**Part Three: Home**_

Hannibal leaned back in his chair, eyes closed, and drew in a mouthful of flavorful smoke. He savored it for a long moment, feeling the heat on his tongue and drawing the familiar aroma into his sinuses, then he exhaled slowly and cracked his eyes open to watch the smoke stream from between his lips. Beautiful, the way it coiled upward then spread and shredded on the faint breeze. It seemed to carry the last of his tension away with it, carry it up to the canopy of leaves that arched over the deck where it was lost in the whispering shadows.

This cabin was not the most luxurious accommodation they had ever known in their years as fugitives, but it had many advantages. The majestic old-growth forest that surrounded it was one. Its isolation was another. But to Hannibal's way of thinking, the best thing the cabin had to offer was peace.

The team had just returned the previous evening from another successful mission. They had shut down a smuggling ring that used undocumented aliens to carry drugs across the border. A simple and unimaginative scheme, but very profitable. Hannibal and his boys had collected enough evidence to put the boss behind bars for a few decades, mopped up the gang and delivered them to the proper authorities, gift wrapped for the holidays.

They had been gone for nearly two weeks - by far the longest time that they had yet left Face on his own - and Murdock had been fairly twitching with anxiety when they finally turned for home. But other than a pile of unwashed laundry and signs that the lieutenant had survived on canned baked beans, they found everything in order.

In the aftermath of the mission, Hannibal was tired and grateful for the chance to simply prop up his feet and relax. He took another drag on his cigar and watched a blue jay stalk along the railing to where his booted feet rested. It inspected them for a moment, gave an indignant shriek, and flapped away into the trees. Hannibal grinned at it, then turned his attention to a scuffling in the undergrowth that heralded the arrival of some new form of life.

Before the creature could show itself, footsteps sounded on the deck behind the colonel, drawing his attention and frightening away his woodland visitor. B.A. approached, carrying two coffee mugs. He handed one to Hannibal, then set his own on the railing while he pulled up another chair. Soon, he was settled in beside his commander, sipping his coffee and looking as pleasantly relaxed as the other man.

After some minutes, Hannibal mustered enough energy to murmur, "Did you check the perimeter, Corporal?"

"Yeah," B.A. rumbled. "Nothin' disturbed since we left."

"Face report anything?"

"Nope."

"Where is he?"

"In his room."

"Hm." The colonel sipped his coffee, then asked, his gaze still dwelling on the trees, "Did Face say anything to you about this last mission? About us being gone so long?"

"Not a word."

"He seems to have managed pretty well."

"Don't say that to Murdock. He's still havin' fits about all them beans."

Hannibal met B.A.'s eyes and they both grinned. Murdock had been trying to improve Face's eating habits since they met a decade ago but had never succeeded. Face would happily eat anything Murdock made for him, but left to his own devices, he would just as happily live out of tin cans. "What's he up to?"

"Dunno. He was washin' dishes and mutterin' to himself like a crazy person when I left. I told 'im to leave Face alone about the food, but I don't figure he'll listen to me."

"He needs to leave Face alone all together."

B.A. shot him a quizzical look. "What's that mean?"

"I have an agreement with Face. We won't be overprotective and he won't demand any more of our help than he absolutely needs. It was the only way I could get him to agree to come with us."

That seemed to take B.A. completely by surprise. "He didn't wanna come? Really?"

"Oh, he _wanted_ to come, but he didn't think he should. He was afraid - is still afraid, I think - that we'd fall into the same old patterns we did at the clinic."

"He don't want to be dependent on us."

"No. And he doesn't want to stop us from doing what we need to do."

"What if we _need_ to look after our friend?" the corporal demanded.

Hannibal grinned around his cigar. "That's what I said, but he wasn't buying it."

"But he wants us around, don't he? He wants to be part of the team?"

"Yes, but we're still working on what that means."

"Huh. So, is Murdock gonna drive Face outta here with his hoverin' and fussin'?"

"I hope not, because if he does, we'll have to let him go."

"No, man…"

"Yes. We have an agreement. And Face isn't a child I can order back into his room. If he goes, he goes, and we'll just have to accept it."

"Then I'm gonna have a little _talk_ with Murdock," B.A. cracked his knuckles suggestively, "and set 'im straight before he pushes Faceman out the door."

"Wait, B.A. Give it a little time. Let them work it out between them."

B.A. made a disgruntled noise in his throat but stayed in his seat, making no immediate move to hunt down the pilot and beat him into submission. "Crazy Man better not do any damage we can't fix."

"When has he ever?"

"How 'bout the time he scared me so bad that I can't fly anymore?!"

"Okay, I'll give you that one. But what damage has he ever done to _Face_?"

"Lit 'im on fire?" Hannibal just rolled his eyes and B.A. finally conceded, "Okay, none. He loves Faceman too much to hurt 'im."

"And Face loves him too much to walk away. So stay out of it and let them figure out the ground rules."

"You're askin' me to trust Murdock. Trust 'im with Face's life."

"Who better?"

B.A. pondered that statement for a moment, then gave a grunt of agreement. Sinking back in his chair, he slurped his coffee and resumed his contemplation of the forest. Hannibal did the same, leaving the corporal to mull over his thoughts in peace. In the comfortable silence, the blue jay hopped down onto the railing to investigate, then squawked in outrage at the two pairs of feet blocking his path.

* * *

Murdock strolled into the room and halted just inside the door to study its occupant. Face sat at window, his head angled to catch the wash of winter sunlight in the corner of his right eye, wearing the faintly wistful expression that had become a constant for him. He had not heard Murdock's footsteps approaching, or he would have put his smiling mask in place before the pilot caught him, but what had distracted him Murdock couldn't tell. Perhaps his own thoughts, which clearly were not very cheerful.

A faint mewing sounded from down by Murdock's ankles, and the familiar sleek, white form of Luna oozed by him. At the sound of the cat's voice, Face's head came around sharply, his eyes finding and following her unerringly.

"Hello, beautiful," he said, mimicking words Murdock had heard him say a hundred times, to women of a very different sort than this one.

Luna gathered herself and leapt nimbly into his lap. Face clasped her with his half-functional right hand, pulling her close, then began to rub her head and throat with his left. Luna instantly curled herself into a comfortable ball and began to purr like a Big Block.

"Hey, Faceguy," Murdock said quietly, not wanting to startle the other man.

Face's head snapped up again, his bright, perfect, lying smile suddenly blossoming across his face and driving away the shadows that had darkened it a moment before. "Murdock."

Murdock watched the transformation and sighed inwardly. He thought about pretending that he believed the smile, or about trying to wheedle Face's worries out of him. But he was tired of playing the nursemaid and just wanted to talk to his friend, so he opted for the direct approach.

In a dry voice such as he would have used with the old, wicked Face, he drawled, "Don't bother."

Face blinked at him and opened his mouth as if to respond, but Murdock stopped him. "You were sulking when I came in. Don't let me interrupt."

"I was not sulking."

"Huh," Murdock grunted, skeptically.

"I wasn't," Face insisted. "I was… wondering."

"'Bout what?" Murdock slouched over to an empty chair near the window and flopped down on it.

"The weather."

"The weather? Face, this is Southern California. There is no weather."

"Okay, not weather. Seasons." He turned to face Murdock fully and fixed his blind gaze on him. "We've been here a long time, I think, but I don't know. I can't… see the days go by."

"Yeah," Murdock said, glumly, "I get that."

"The air feels cold. There are dead leaves on the deck that crunch." He clasped the purring body on his lap for a moment. "Luna's bigger."

"Your hair's grown back."

Face pushed his fingers through his hair, combing it back from his forehead. "Yeah."

"And you want to know how long it's been." Face nodded. "More than a year since Iraq. Five months since we came here."

"A year." Face's gaze fell and he stared at something Murdock couldn't see, his features shadowed with melancholy once more.

"Closer to a year and a half."

"It seems… much longer. My memories – the ones from b-before – seem so far away, like they happened to s- someone else. I know it was me, but…" The stumble in his words betrayed his distress. He turned suddenly away, giving Murdock a clear view of the scar on his left temple which, in the cold light, looked very fresh and painful.

"Face?"

The lieutenant did not respond, just clutched the purring cat and stared blindly out the window.

"Face, I'm sorry. I shouldn't've said anything."

"You're the only one who t-tells me the truth. That's why I ask you."

"Hannibal and Bosco never lie to you."

"They… mmm… protect me."

"I'd protect you, too, if I could figure out how."

"I've already got a hole in my skull and half my brain gone. What are you going to protect me from, now?"

"Aww, Face…"

Face waved his hand, as if brushing away his friend's concern and said, determinedly, "Never mind. I want to know what time of year it is. What's today's date?"

Murdock stared at him for a moment, struggling to switch gears, then said, "It's Christmas Eve."

"What? It's… _What?_ "

"Christmas Eve." When Face continued to stare blankly at him, he laughed and said, "Come on, Face, it happens every year."

"Yes, but…"

"But what?"

"Jesus, Murdock, why didn't you tell me?!"

"'Cause nobody felt much like celebrating."

"I do."

"Huh?"

"I'm alive. I was supposed to be dead, but I'm alive. I can talk again. I'm not a fugitive. And I've got some of my memory back so I know who I am and who my friends are. And what Christmas is. That sounds like a good reason to celebrate, to me."

"When you put it that way…"

A sudden, entirely genuine smile broke over the lieutenant's face, and he turned shining blue eyes full of pleading on Murdock. "Can we get out of here? Go into town? Please, Murdock?"

"I don't think that's a very good idea."

"Why not? We won't do anything dangerous. I just want to walk down the street, hear the Christmas carols, smell the trees… I hate this cabin, Murdock. I _hate_ it. I'm so sick of it, I'm going crazy. Please help me get out for a little while. _Please_."

An hour later, the two men strolled down the main street of a small Southern California town, nestled in the mountains to the northwest of Los Angeles. Murdock wore his usual scruffy chinos and jacket, with a moth-eaten World War I leather flight helmet crammed onto his head. He was not worried about being spotted himself. He had been to this artsy tourist community many times over the last five months and had never been noticed. But today, he had Face with him, and Face was always noticed.

For all of the visible damage done to him - his limp, his crippled hand, his scarred face - it was still his sheer physical presence that made Face so noticeable. Smash him up, scar him, break him, blind him, and he still turned heads on the street with his beauty. The women who smiled seductively at him didn't know that the eyes behind his RayBans were mismatched and couldn't see their charms. The men who shot him envious looks didn't know that he couldn't tie his own shoes and sometimes forgot how to finish a sentence. All they saw was a gorgeous man tilting his head up to let the winter wind ruffle his hair and laughing in pure joy at the feeling. Murdock laughed too, unable to help himself, swept along by the irresistible force of his friend's delight.

They halted at the end of a block, waiting for the traffic to clear so they could cross the street, and Face caught a familiar, beloved scent on the wind.

"Smell that?"

"What?"

"Coffee. Where's it coming from?"

Murdock looked around until he spotted a little storefront on the opposite corner, tucked in behind a yarn shop. "Looks like a used bookstore with a coffee bar in it."

"Perfect. Let's go."

The pilot had no objection and no better place to be, so he led Face across the street and up a pair of shallow steps to the book shop. They stepped through the glass-paneled door to be welcomed by the tinkling of a brass bell, the smell of roasting coffee and the sound of Judy Garland singing "I'll Be Home for Christmas" in her most throaty, seductive voice. Face took a deep, appreciative breath and smiled beatifically.

The space was cramped and rather shabby, with shelves that spilled worn volumes onto the floor in places and squashy armchairs tucked into comfortable nooks between the shelves. Murdock had to step carefully to get himself and his friend safely past the many obstacles. As they approached the coffee bar in the middle of the room, a fat orange cat leapt up onto the counter to inspect them.

Another pair of eyes gazed at them with equal curiosity, belonging to the barista-sales clerk behind the counter. She was a woman in her early twenties, barely five feet tall in her Doc Martens, with a lush, rounded figure that the uncharitable would call fat. She added a few inches to her height and quite a lot to her presence with a spiky thatch of hair, cut in asymmetrical chunks and dyed with hot pink streaks. Metal studs adorned her ears, eyebrows, lips, nose and navel, while tattoos covered most of her plump arms. Even in the depths of winter, she wore clothing that was more holes than fabric, held together with leather laces and safety pins. Her only concession to the season was a Santa hat perched crookedly on her spiked, lacquered head.

The entire picture was so overdone that it teetered on the edge of self-satire. But the humorous intelligence in her black-rimmed eyes told Murdock that she knew exactly what image she presented and enjoyed playing it for all it was worth.

"'Allo, gents," she purred in a voice as scratchy, sexy and appealing as any Judy Garland could muster. "'Appy Christmas."

Face leaned against the counter and smiled brightly enough to melt the rivets driven through her nose. "Merry Christmas, beautiful."

Murdock gave the girl a critical once-over, wondering whether Face would bother if he could see what was attached to that voice. Probably, since Face had never met a woman he wouldn't charm, given the opportunity.

"You're not from around here," the pilot drawled.

"'Ow'd you guess?" she replied in her heavy Cockney accent.

"London. Cheapside?"

She laughed, her eyes narrowing into gleaming slits between their magenta lids. "Not bad, for a Yank."

"My name's Murdock. What's yours?"

"Pru."

"This is Face. You can probably guess why we call him that."

Face smiled beguilingly at her. "Nice to meet you, Pru."

"Ta. What can I get you gents?"

"Coffee," Face said earnestly. "I need coffee."

She gestured to the chalkboard hanging above the counter, its surface covered with tightly packed writing. "The plain, black kind, or something more festive?"

"He'll have a double-shot cappuccino with extra foam," Murdock said, "and I'll have that peppermint cream latte thing that looks like a party favor."

"Right you are, luv."

At that moment, the orange cat decided that he was entitled to a share of the newcomers' attention and sauntered over to rub against Face's arm, purring loudly.

"Get out of it, Bolly," Pru snapped, waving her hand fruitlessly at the cat.

Face scratched the offered head and grinned down at his new friend. "What did you call him?"

"That's Bolingbroke, our shop cat. Bolly for short."

"Bolingbroke." Face cocked his head in a way that told Murdock he was trying to remember something. To the pilot's infinite surprise, he broke out in a smile and said, triumphantly, "Shakespeare! Richard the… the…"

"Second," Pru said, nodding in approval, as she turned away to begin constructing their elaborate coffees. "You a scholar of The Bard?"

"I don't remember."

Pru shot him a curious look, but Murdock just shook his head. "Don't ask. His brain works in mysterious ways."

"When it w-works at all," Face added, stumbling slightly over his words and earning him another glance from the girl.

He seemed to sense her confusion and, totally without embarrassment, slipped off his glasses to fix her with his impossibly blue, completely blank eyes. When her silence told him that he had her undivided attention, he turned his head slightly and tapped the wicked scar on his temple with one earpiece. "Thanks to this, I don't remember much."

"That's lovely, that is."

He leaned his elbows on the counter, one hand still petting Bolingbroke, and said with a suggestive twinkle, "Do you like men with scars?"

"I like men who know their Shakespeare and drink my coffee." Setting a cup down on the counter, she slid it over until it rested against the backs of his fingers. "Drink up, luv."

Face curled his fingers carefully around the warm cardboard and lifted it to take a sip. "Mmm."

"If you two are done flirting, I'd like my peppermint thing," Murdock said with mock severity.

Face took another sip and said, severely, "I don't flirt. I've sworn off women."

"Since when?" Murdock demanded.

"Since I lost half my brain. And since I got Luna."

"'Oo's Luna, when she's at 'ome?" Pru asked, as she set a large, pink, frothy confection topped with whipped cream and chunks of peppermint candy in front of Murdock.

"My kitten," Face answered.

"His soul mate," Murdock amended. "Or his familiar, depending on how you look at it."

Pru laughed and waved them toward a pair of soft armchairs. "'Ave a seat, enjoy the coffee, read a book…" Face cocked an ironic eyebrow, drawing a chuckle from her. "Sorry. We do have some books in Braille, somewhere in the back…"

"Maybe another time." Face grinned and lifted his cup in a salute. "You make a mean cup of coffee, Pru, and I love listening to you talk, but I'm on a mission."

"You are?" Murdock asked, startled.

"To make the most of my freedom. Come on, Murdock, let's go find some more Christmas Cheer."

Murdock shrugged and smiled apologetically at Pru. "See you later, then."

"Merry Christmas!" Face called gaily, as Murdock piloted him toward the door. "We'll be back!"

* * *

Face was bored. Incredibly, mind-numbingly bored. So bored that he would gladly pull the house down, nail by nail, just to pass the time, if he could find the nails. The team was off on another mission, earning their keep and righting the wrongs of the world, which left Face to kick his heels in the cabin with nothing to do and no one to talk to. He had lost count of the number of days they'd been gone, but it was long enough that he'd resorted to washing dishes and doing laundry to pass the time. The laundry was a true act of desperation, since he could not identify, sort or fold the clean garments. The best he could do was untangle the various pieces of fabric and leave everything spread on Murdock's bed until the pilot came home to deal with it.

One major source of discontent was his isolation. Without Murdock, he couldn't stroll in the woods or trek into town for a visit with Pru and Bolly. He'd come to depend on these breaks in the routine, not to mention the company of someone who didn't know him better than he knew himself. Pru was funny, smart and completely devoid of pity. She didn't know him from before, didn't care how much he'd changed, and never let him get away with anything. She also showed no signs of falling for his charm, no matter how many cracks Murdock made about robbing the cradle. She was simply a friend.

Face missed her. A week, two weeks, whatever it was, without her company or anyone else's was more than he could take and keep his sanity. He was standing in the middle of the room, pondering this problem, when Luna came milling about his ankles, crying fretfully. She, too, was bored and annoyed by Face's inattention. The sound of her voice brought him out of his black study and crystallized a decision in his head. It was time to get out of here.

Driven by a new purpose, he moved unerringly about the cabin, collecting his sunglasses, cane and cell phone. His walking boots had velcro fastenings, so he could manage them without help, and his military parka had wide pockets in which Luna could comfortably ride. In remarkably short order, he stepped out the door and locked it behind him. Then he unfolded his cane - an accessory he hated but recognized as essential when he didn't have Murdock's friendly shoulder as a guide - and made his way down to the road.

It was a lovely, brisk, sunny day. Face tilted his head back to enjoy the touch of the winter sun on his face as he walked. Luna poked her head out of his pocket and did the same, her pale eyes slitted against the light. They reached the bottom of the road and turned to follow the highway into town. Face had made the two-mile walk with Murdock more than once, but this was his first attempt on his own. A saner man might have felt some qualms about leaving the safety of his home and wandering off into the darkness with only a kitten for support. But Face knew no fear. He had complete faith in his own resources and the helpfulness of human beings in general, having never yet been denied assistance when he asked for it, once he sweetened the request with a smile.

He kept to the shoulder, well away from the traffic on the two-lane rural highway, so his feet crunched on pine cones, dead leaves and other detritus as he went. A steady, if thin trickle of cars passed him. He ignored them, concentrating on navigating safely, until one pulled up beside him. He halted, not because he wanted to talk to the driver, but because he didn't want to walk into the side of a metal vehicle by accident.

"Can I give you a lift?" a woman's voice called.

He smiled sweetly at her and said, "No, thanks."

"You sure?" The offer in her words was blatant, even to his ears. "Where are you headed? I can drop you anywhere…"

"No, I'm good. Really. But thanks for offering."

She sounded disappointed when she said, "All right, then. Be careful on this road. People drive like maniacs out here."

"I will." His smile widened, and he could almost hear the driver whimpering. "Have a good one."

The car pulled away, leaving the odor of exhaust and frustrated desire behind it. Face laughed and continued on his way.

He and Luna reached the outskirts of town without encountering any obstacles more serious than a few large rocks in their path and some bushes that caught at Face's clothes. They followed the highway into the middle of town and the familiar business district. The street traffic thickened, as did the foot traffic on the sidewalks, and Face found himself dodging busy shoppers and hyper children. He had a vague idea where the bookshop was, but having never come here alone before, he found the bustle and noise disorienting. He was standing on a corner, trying to decide which way to go, when another strange voice accosted him.

"Can I help you, sir?"

Face turned toward the new voice. Something about it rang a note of familiarity in the back of his mind, but he couldn't quite identify it. Did he know this man?

"I think I'm lost," he admitted, with a wry smile.

"If you tell me where you're going, maybe I can point you in the right direction."

"There's a bookstore that sells coffee. I don't know what it's called, but the girl behind the counter is named Pru. And there's a cat."

"I know the place, sir. It's just over here. If you'll allow me…"

As Face accepted his offered arm and stepped into the street beside him, a fragmentary memory clicked into place and he said, suddenly, "Police!"

"Excuse me, sir?"

"You're a policeman."

"Yes, sir.

"I thought maybe I knew you, but it was just the way you talk. Like a policeman."

"I thought maybe I knew you, too," the cop said. For the first time, there was a hint of something other than formal authority in his voice. A whiff of curiosity.

"You probably know my face from Wanted posters. I used to be a fugitive."

Curiosity turned to mistrust. "Used to be?"

"I was pardoned. But lots of people still recognize my face." He read the stiffness in the other man's posture and added, in a friendly way, "Don't worry, I'm not one of the bad guys. It was just a misunderstanding."

They stopped in front of the store but the cop didn't guide him up the steps or let him go. "Mind if I ask your name, sir?"

"Templeton Peck. My friends call me Face."

He could hear the gears turning in the other man's head. "Peck. I know that name."

"Like I said, I was a fugitive."

"The A-Team! That's it! I knew I'd heard it before."

"Right."

"The rest of your team are still fugitives, aren't they?"

"Yes, Officer, they are." He smiled blindingly. "But they aren't here, are they, so there's no one for you to arrest."

The cop laughed in spite of himself. "No, sir, Mr. Peck."

"Call me Face."

"Call me Larry. Larry Burgoyne."

"Thanks for the arm, Larry."

"Any time. Take care of yourself."

With that, the cop strode off and Face climbed the steps to the door.

Pru greeted him with a delighted, "Wotcher, Face! Where you been, luv?"

"Trapped at home. I'd kill for a cup of your coffee, Pru."

"On its way."

Face settled into his favorite chair and lifted Luna out of his pocket. She jumped down to prowl a bit and say hello to Bolly, while Face relaxed in the welcoming atmosphere of the shop. Pru brought him his usual and folded herself into the chair next to his.

"Where's Murdock?"

"Gone. They got a job and left… I don't know. Weeks ago, it feels like. I had to get out."

"'Ow'd you get 'ere?"

"Walked."

"'Ow d'you plan to get back?"

He shrugged and leaned his head back against the chair, too contented to worry about anything and too glad to be free to consider how he'd get back to his prison.

Pru made a disgruntled noise but didn't press him. It was a quiet day with few customers, so she was free to sit and talk with minimal interruptions. Her boss, Hugo, came in after lunch and the mood quickly deteriorated. Hugo was, by Pru's description, a total bastard who didn't approve of her layabout friends. He glared and muttered and aimed kicks at Luna until Face got the message and prepared to leave.

"'Ow you gonna get 'ome, luv?" Pru asked, as he collected Luna and unfolded his cane.

"I'll walk. It's only a couple of miles."

Pru decided that he had not fully thought out his plan, and that trying to walk home when he couldn't see the road signs was a bad idea. It was one thing to follow the highway into town, when town was large and loud and impossible to miss. It was another thing entirely to try to find one side-turning along miles of lonely road.

"You'll get lost. I'll drive you."

Hugo glared a her from his seat behind the counter. "You're working!"

"Oy'm taykin' a break. And you can bloody well sack me, if you don't like it!" She always turned up the Cockney when arguing with Hugo. As she turned away, she muttered, "Stupid git."

"Why do you work for someone you hate so much?" Face asked.

"Keeps life interesting. Come on, luv, let's get you 'ome."

A few minutes later, they pulled up in front of the cabin. Pru cut the engine and hopped out of the bright red Mini. Face climbed out his own door more carefully and waited by the car for her to join him. As he rested a hand on her shoulder and followed her toward the porch, he said, "Care to join me for a cup of coffee?"

"'Aven't you 'ad enough?"

"Enough coffee, yes. But not enough of your company."

"Cheeky."

He grinned. "Always." Halting on the porch, he fished the house key from his pocket and slipped it in the lock. The key turned too easily, telling him that the door was already unlocked. He frowned as he pocketed the key and muttered, "That's weird."

"Somethin' wrong?"

"I thought I locked up when I left. Guess I forgot." With that, he pushed open the door and stepped inside with Pru just behind him.

The blow came from his left, slamming into his head and breaking his glasses. He fell hard but rolled instinctively and got his feet under him. A booted foot hammered into his ribs before he could stand, forcing the air from his lungs and sending him sprawling on the floor. A second kick to the same spot made his ribs creak alarmingly. Face gave a whoop of pain and surprise. Then, as rough hands grabbed him and dragged him upright, he laughed and gasped out, "Is that any way to say hello?"

Someone struck him a fierce blow to the face. He tasted blood.

"Where is he?" a voice snarled. "Where's Smith?"

"Who?" Face asked, innocently, earning him another blow that sent blood running down his chin.

"Hannibal Smith. I want 'im, and you're gonna tell me where to find 'im."

He spat blood on the floor and grinned unrepentantly at his uninvited guest. "And here I thought you wanted a cup of coffee."

"Stupid son of a bitch!" the stranger snarled. "You tryin' to get hurt?"

"Looks like I don't have to try very hard."

The man who was clutching his arm decided that he needed a lesson in manners and drove his fist into Face's side, making him double-up with pain.

"That bastard got our boss locked up, and we're gonna make him pay!"

Somewhere in the background, Pru was spewing Cockney obscenities and demanding that they get their bloody hands off her friend. Face was reassured to hear only anger in her voice, no fear. Apparently she could keep her head and her nerve in a crisis.

The ring-leader grabbed a fistful of Face's hair and dragged him up again, twisting his head until their faces were only inches apart. "I know Smith is living here," he spat.

"Sorry," Face replied, "just me and the cat."

"You mean that tattooed freak over there?"

"No. I mean the cat." As if summoned by his words, Luna decided that she'd had enough rough treatment for one day and clambered out of Face's pocket. She used his parka-clad arm as a ladder, hitched herself up into the crook of his elbow, and sank her teeth into the hand clamped around his upper arm.

The goon holding him shouted in pain and flailed his arm to dislodge her, letting go of Face in the process. Luna hung on, yowling and scratching, while Face stepped clear of both his captors to get his bearings. One invader was struggling to free himself of Luna. Another was engaged in a shouting match with Pru. A third was shouting orders at his henchmen and swearing at Face. That seemed to account for all of them, unless one was asleep in the corner. In that instant, Face decided that it was time to end this farce and, throwing caution to the wind, he lunged for the ringleader.

" _Shit!_ " the man growled, as he saw Face coming at him.

A shattering noise that Face recognized as a gunshot split the air. He felt the fierce, burning pain of a bullet hitting his leg and knew a moment of insane joy. This is what he was born to do, what he had always done better than anyone. Baiting an enemy till he lost his head and let his guard down. Jumping into the fray with both feet. Exploiting distraction and weakness to take out the threat at any cost. The pain, the blood, the chaos were all part of a familiar pattern and he relished them. He _needed_ them to feel himself again.

He laughed as he struck his opponent with all his weight, bearing them both to the floor. His hands fastened around the other man's neck, and he slammed his head into the hardwood surface until he stopped struggling. Even as he grabbed the abandoned gun, he heard a crash and the tinkle of broken glass, announcing that Pru had taken out her captor with a handy lamp. That left only Luna's victim.

Turning to sweep the room with his gun, Face called to Pru, "Where is he? The third one?"

"Right in front of you!"

"Don't move, buddy, or I'll put a bullet in you."

"You can't even see me!" the man protested, his feet scraping on the floor as he turned from one of them to the other, looking for an opening to attack.

"I can hear you. And if you try anything, my cat will scratch your eyes out."

"She already tried. Jesus! Where'd you get that animal?!"

Face laughed, still so full of the rush and heat of battle that he barely felt the bullet wound in his leg. "That's my girl! Pru, check him for weapons and find something to tie him up with."

"Can I knock 'im out? Just to be safe?"

"Go for it."

He heard another crash and a groan and a body hitting the floor.

"Nice," he said. "Now get their guns and tie them up."

"What about you? You're bleedin' all over the place."

"I'll take care of that."

With the aplomb that Face now expected from her, Pru went about her tasks and left him to his own. Stiffly, his ribs and head now hurting nearly as badly as his leg, as the adrenaline left his system, Face peeled off his shirt and twisted it into a makeshift bandage. He couldn't tie it, but he wrapped it tightly around the wound in his leg and hoped it would stay in place. Then he finally let himself relax and sank back on the floor.

Pru returned in a few minutes to announce that she'd found a roll of duct tape in the kitchen and trussed up their attackers with it. Face mustered enough energy to thank her. Then he handed her his cell phone and said, "Call the Police."

She took the phone hesitantly, doubt clear in her voice when she asked, "What do I tell them?"

"The truth. Just don't say anything about my friends."

"But…"

"It'll be fine, Pru, I promise. I'm not a criminal and we didn't do anything wrong. Hannibal and the others aren't here, so they can't get into trouble. Just tell them what happened."

"Face, I don't think…"

"And find Luna." He was fading out. He could feel it. Blood loss and exhaustion were getting the better of him, and he was fading fast. "Thank her for me."

"Face? _Face!_ "

"I'm fine," he murmured sleepily. "Everything's… fine. It was fun, wasn't it?"

With that, he sank quietly into unconsciousness.

* * *

When Face woke, he found himself in the familiar surroundings of a hospital. He recognized the sounds and smells almost immediately, even through the thick fog of sleep that still shrouded him, and he found them comforting. He didn't like being in the hospital - not without Murdock beside him - but he knew he was safe here. And he wasn't entirely alone. Someone was in the room with him.

Turning to look at the presence beside him, he made a wordless noise that served as both a greeting and a question, without requiring him to exert the energy to talk.

The presence stirred, shifting chair legs against the floor, and a familiar voice said, "Wotcher, Face."

He smiled tiredly. "Hey, Pru."

"You're in 'ospital."

"Yeah." He forced himself to concentrate through the fog, to grasp the essential elements of the situation, and asked, "How's Luna?"

Pru chuckled. "She's mad as fire that you aren't there. I fed 'er this morning. Oh, I borrowed yer 'ouse key. 'Ope you don't mind."

He smiled and shook his head. "Thanks." Then her words soaked in and he frowned slightly in confusion. "What day is it?"

"Tomorrow. You've been asleep for almost 24 hours."

"Mm." He stirred slightly, feeling the ache in his ribs blossom into real pain and his leg suddenly catch fire. "Broke my ribs, I think."

"Yeah. Two broken ribs, one perforated leg and lots of cuts and bruises. Nothing fatal."

He smiled again, dismissing his injuries. "How about you?"

"No worries, luv. One of 'em grabbed me, but I 'it 'im with a lamp and dropped 'im in 'is tracks."

"Good for you. I'm sorry you got mixed up in this."

"I'm not. If you'd been alone, those goons might 'ave killed you."

Face waved that idea away with lofty disdain. "No one's managed to kill me yet. And plenty have tried, believe me."

"I do." She sounded oddly troubled, drawing Face's attention and making him reach a hand toward her in concern.

"I didn't mean to say that I'm not grateful for your help. I am," he said earnestly.

"It's not that." Suddenly, he felt her fingertip on his shoulder and he realized that he wasn't wearing a shirt or hospital gown. "'Ow'd you get all these scars, Face? Are they all from people trying to kill you?"

"Most of them. The ones I can remember."

"What about this one?" She touched the bayonet scar in his right shoulder.

"I got that the same time I got this," he tapped his left temple, then he held up his right hand, palm outward. "And this."

"When you lost your sight."

"Mm."

"Do you remember it?"

"Most of it."

"What about these?" She fingered a series of three small, round scars just visible below the bandage on his ribs. "Are these bullet 'oles?"

"Mm. Little ones. I got those in Iraq, during the war, from a twelve-year-old kid with a 22." He traced a knife scar on his left bicep. "And this one was a crazy Bedouin who thought I was stealing his camels. I was, of course, but I still think he overreacted."

Pru chuckled.

"I've collected scars on every continent. Except maybe Antarctica. I don't remember going there…"

"But you might've."

"Yeah." He grinned over at her. "I'll have to ask Hannibal. He's been there with me through every battle, so he'll know."

"You'd really forget fighting among the penguins?"

"I've forgotten a lot." Face's smile died as he considered how much of his life had vanished into the darkness. "Too much. I wish I could get it all back, but…"

"P'raps you will."

He shook his head. "I wasn't supposed to remember this much. Anything, really. And we know for sure that some of my brain tissue is dead, gone, and my memories with it. So what I really need to do is protect the ones I have. Make sure I never forget anything, ever again."

"You should write a book," Pru said brightly. "A memoir."

Face laughed at that and closed his eyes wearily. "I don't think the world is ready for my life story."

"I do. I think it's a brilliant idea!"

"Even if it is yours?"

"Especially because it's mine. Think about it, Face. You want to protect your memories. So you sort them out, write them down, and preserve them for posterity. And in the process, you get a bloody great book about a world-famous team of soldiers from the inside. Their own story in their own words. It'll be a best seller!"

Face turned tired, smiling eyes on her. "You're mad."

"I'm right, and you know it."

He thought about that for a long moment, then said, "If you want me to write a book, you'll have to help me. Type it, edit it, make it into English."

"I'm not an editor!"

"Well, I'm not an author, so we're even."

"I 'ave a job."

"With a boss you hate. I'll pay you to be my… what's it called, when someone writes a book for you but doesn't get the credit?"

Pru chuckled at that and offered, "A ghostwriter?"

"That sounds good. I'll pay you to be my ghostwriter. And when our book hits the Best Seller list, you'll get a cut of the profits." He held out his hand to her. "Deal?"

She broke out in a throaty laugh and clasped his hand to shake it. "Deal."

Pushing himself up on his elbows, he demanded, "Buzz the nurse. Then find me some clothes."

"What're you doing?"

"Getting out of here. We have work to do."

Hannibal stared around him at the wreckage of the room, his expression hard and his mind sizzling with fury. He could hear Murdock tearing through the house, throwing open every door and shouting for Face with a growing note of panic in his voice. He could also hear B.A. stomping around, checking perimeter defenses and muttering to himself. But Hannibal did not move. He simply stood there, staring at the pool of congealed blood on the floor, trying to divine what had happened from the scattered bits of evidence.

Someone had broken in. That was obvious from the damaged lock on the front door. Someone had attacked Face. The blood on the floor might be his or it might not, but the broken glass and various sticky footprints made it clear that several people had been in this room since the unidentified someone bled all over it. And finally, someone had taken Face away. Murdock might cling to the hope that he'd find Faceman behind one of the doors he banged so violently, but Hannibal knew better. The fretting, yowling cat was proof of that, because if Face were anywhere in this house, Luna would be with him. Perhaps making that same dreadful noise to attract their attention, but definitely with him. The fact that she was prowling around Hannibal's feet, rubbing up against him and crying insistently meant that Face was gone.

Hannibal had not taken his deductions any farther than this when B.A. joined him.

"They came in through the front," the corporal announced, unnecessarily. "None of the alarms have been tripped."

"The lock is broken. They must have forced it."

"Why didn't Face call us when they broke in?"

Hannibal just shook his head.

"He wouldn't let 'em just grab him without puttin' up a fight."

"He didn't." Hannibal jerked his chin toward the shattered remains of the lamp and the mess of red footprints all over the hardwood floor.

At that moment, Murdock came charging from the back of the house, calling, "He isn't here! He's gone! What the Hell is goin' on here, Boss?!"

"I don't know, Murdock."

"We gotta find Faceman. We gotta get 'im back!"

"Give me a minute to think…"

Before Murdock could attack him with another wave of noise and panic, they all heard a sound from outside that brought instant silence between them. A car pulling up to the house.

Guns materialized in their hands, as Hannibal strode to the door, B.A. flattened himself to the wall beside it, and Murdock twitched aside the curtain to peer out the front window. Voices and footsteps approached. Hannibal had just grasped the doorknob, when Murdock suddenly pushed him aside and flung the door open, shouting, "Faceman!"

B.A. and Hannibal exchanged a startled look, then followed the pilot out onto the porch. They had just enough time to see Face limping toward the house, leaning heavily on the shoulder of a freakish little person with spiked, pink hair and more piercings than skin, before the pilot reached him and swept him up in a crushing bear hug.

"Face! Jesus, you scared the crap outta me! Where've you been?!"

Face laughed and demanded, "Put me down, Murdock."

As Murdock let go of him and he staggered slightly to get his balance, Hannibal ran a critical eye over his lieutenant. The left side of his face was bruised and swollen, his shirt hung open to expose a bandage strapped tightly around his black and purple ribs, and a bulky dressing showed beneath his bloodstained pant leg. He looked like he'd just gone ten rounds with a heavyweight champion. But he was grinning happily, completely at ease, untroubled by his injuries, just the way Hannibal remembered him from countless battles.

"You've got some explaining to do, Lieutenant," Hannibal called with mock severity. He wanted to wring Face's neck, as he so often did, but he also wanted to laugh out loud with relief and delight.

"And a big, ol' bloodstain to clean up," B.A. added, "'cause I sure ain't doin' it."

"Hey, Hannibal. Bosco. Sorry about the mess. We would've cleaned it up, if you'd stayed away a little longer."

"Sorry to disrupt your plans. Who's 'we'?" Hannibal asked pointedly, his eyes on the stranger.

"This is Pru." He placed a proprietary hand on the girl's shoulder. "She's my coffee supplier, ghostwriter and wingman."

Hannibal nodded a neutral greeting then said, "Why don't you come inside and sit down. Then you can tell us what the blazes happened. And say hello to that cat before she ruptures something."

Face laughed again and stooped to grab hold of the cat milling so frantically around his feet. With Luna tucked safely against his broken ribs, he let Murdock take Pru's place and support his weight as he limped painfully up the steps to the porch. Inside, he dropped gratefully onto the couch, propped his wounded leg on a stool, and closed his eyes in relief.

"Jesus, it's good to be home."

"Where've you been?" Murdock asked.

"The hospital. Since yesterday."

"But what _happened?_ "

So Face told them the whole story, starting with his stroll to town and ending with passing out on the floor while waiting for the police. He dwelt with relish on Luna's part in the adventure and Pru's handy use of the lamp. He didn't tell them how he'd felt when the bullet plowed into his leg and took him back to those half-forgotten days as a soldier and mercenary, but he didn't have to. They could see it in his face, hear it in his voice, that a lost part of him had come alive again. It made even the blood on the floor seem worthwhile to his listening friends.

Hannibal and B.A. began speculating as to the identity of the invaders, turning over plans for worming that information out of the local police without exposing themselves. Murdock, meanwhile, sat quietly on the sofa next to Face, petting Luna and listening to Face and Pru discuss some book or other. And scars. Murdock had almost missed it when Face called Pru his ghostwriter, but now he wondered if his friend had meant it literally. What were they up to? What new devilry had Faceman cooked up while the team was away?

"You gonna write a book, Face?" he asked suddenly.

"We are. Me and Pru."

"About scars?"

Face chuckled. "Not exactly. That's just what got us started thinking about it."

"So what's it about?"

"Us."

"You and Pru?"

"No, me and you. And Hannibal and Bosco. The war, Iraq, our missions. Everything I can remember about us."

"What're you gonna do with it?"

"We're gonna make a Best Seller out of it!"

Murdock thought about that for a minute. He understood what was really driving Face -his need to safeguard his memories against another catastrophic event - and he rather liked the idea of seeing the story of the A-Team in print.

"Do you think anyone'll want to read it?" he finally asked.

Face broke out in an incandescent grin. "I guess were gonna find out, aren't we?"

 _ **Epilogue: Two Years Later**_

Charissa Sosa stepped off the Metro train and joined the queue at the turnstile. She was late and annoyed with herself for being so, but she knew better than to try to hurry. The station beneath the Pentagon was always packed at this time of day. Her only option was patience.

Once through the turnstile, she rode the escalator up to the entrance level. Her eyes automatically scanned the newsstand to the right of the entrance steps, looking for headlines that might signal trouble. But instead of headlines, she saw a large book display filling the whole center of the stand. Harold always kept a few cheap paperbacks on hand for desperate readers, but Charissa had never seen him place a whole rack of glossy hardbacks front and center before. She twisted around to get a better look and felt her jaw drop open in surprise.

The moment she reached the top of the escalator, she doubled back to the newsstand and snatched up one of the books to stare in disbelief at the picture on the dustcover.

The A-Team. She would know them anywhere. The A-Team striding through F.O.B. Headhunter in the middle of the Iraqi desert, looking fierce and strong and battle-worn. Then she read the title: _My Vacation in the Desert by Templeton Peck_ , and a laugh that was more of a sob rose in her throat.

"You gonna buy that, Cap'n, or just drool on it?" Harold demanded.

Charissa gave him a sardonic look. "How much?"

"Fifty bucks."

"Fifty! Are you kidding me?"

"Hey, it's a Free Market economy. Supply and demand, baby."

With a growl of disgust, she fished a hundred dollar bill out of her bag and slapped it into his hand.

"You can have two copies for that," he remarked with a brown-toothed grin.

"Just give me the change, J.P. Morgan."

He surrendered the change, and she headed for the entry once more, moving slowly, her eyes on the book in her hands. Out of curiosity, she flipped open the back cover to find the obligatory "About the Author" blurb. She was disappointed to find no picture of Face above the terse paragraph.

 _Lieutenant Templeton Peck received a Presidential Pardon on June 10, 20—. He is now a free man. The rest of the A-Team remain fugitives from justice, pursued for a crime they did not commit. Lt. Peck_ _'_ _s current whereabouts are unknown._

Whereabouts unknown? She knew exactly where he was – with Hannibal Smith and the rest of his pirate crew. The exact location didn't matter. Face had chosen the life of a fugitive, rather than separate himself from his team and confront life on his own. Part of her understood that choice, but a larger part still resented it.

Snapping the book shut, she tucked it under her arm and strode through the familiar corridors toward her office. She opened the door in time to hear the phone on her desk begin to buzz angrily. Dumping her belongings unceremoniously on the desk, she grabbed the phone and snapped, "This is Sosa."

"Get in here. Now."

She didn't have to ask who it was. She had known before she picked up the receiver and heard McCready's voice snarling at her. Pausing only to straighten her uniform and make sure no stray hairs had escaped from her rigidly-tight ponytail, she left her serviceable office and headed for the rich, rarified, wood-paneled region the D.O.D. elite called home. McCready's secretary was waiting for her and waved her in without pause. She pushed through the door and felt the heat of the Director's glare hit her like a blowtorch. Halting at the familiar spot four feet in front of his desk, she folded her hands behind her back, lifted her chin and pasted the regulation blank expression on her face.

"Sir."

McReady eyed her in hostile silence for a moment, hoping to make her squirm, then spat out, "Explain this, Captain."

"Sir?"

" _This!_ " He tossed a copy of Face's book onto the desktop with a resounding thud, then wiped his hand ostentatiously on a handkerchief. "This piece of _shit_ lying on my desk!"

"It's a book, sir."

"Are you _trying_ to get yourself busted down to Private?"

"No, sir." She lowered her gaze to the bright dustcover, avoiding her boss's hostile eyes. "I can't explain the book, sir. I didn't know it existed till about five minutes ago."

"Have you read it?"

"In five minutes, sir?" At his warning growl, she dropped the attitude and said, calmly, "I have not had time to read it. I glanced at the inside flaps, no more."

"So you don't know what kind of garbage that glad-handing little swine is shoveling about the Department?"

For the first time, Sosa met his eyes directly. "Does he lie?"

It was a simple question, but they both recognized the challenge and the accusation in it. McCready bared his teeth in a grimace. "He paints himself and his friends as victims and heroes, persecuted by a government that refuses to admit its mistakes, hounded into a life of crime as fugitives, when all they want to do is to fight for their country."

"So… he tells the truth, then."

"That's not the point," McCready ground out. "He _wrote a book!_ Templeton Peck, a man who lost half of his brain and all of his memories in a catastrophic injury, a man who was supposed to spend the rest of his life being spoon-fed in an institution, who barely knew his own name, who was one step up from a drooling vegetable, _wrote a book!_ And a stinking piece of propaganda, into the bargain!"

Sosa just looked at him, playing stupid, though she knew exactly where this was headed.

"You, Lynch, that weasel of a doctor… You played me for a fool, and I'll be damned if I sit still for it!"

"We gave you the facts as we knew them, sir, and asked you to make a decision. None of us could have predicted that Face would recover his faculties, much less his memory."

"If you'd given me the facts, Peck would be locked in a cell right now, not humiliating the U.S. Military in print."

"We gave you the facts," she repeated stubbornly, "and the facts changed. It's as simple as that."

"I don't believe you, Captain Sosa." McCready's voice had dropped to a dangerous hiss. "I think you lied to me, you and your tame CIA Agent, to get me to that clinic. Then you handed the job over to Finch and Peck. Maybe Smith was in on it, too. Was he there the whole time, laughing up his sleeve at how easily I was duped?"

"No one lied to you, Director! We did what we thought was right! I don't know exactly what Finch said to you, but I know _him_ , and I can guarantee that he didn't deliberately mislead you."

"The evidence says otherwise."

"All the evidence says to me is that Face beat the odds and made an incredible recovery. And I, for one, am glad. No man deserves to be left brain-dead and helpless, just because he tries to serve his country. Even a man you hate."

"I don't hate Peck," McCready grumbled, looking disconcerted by her words. "I barely know him."

"Then why are you trying so hard to make this into something sinister? Why are you so angry at him for getting his life back?"

"I don't like being played for a fool!"

"You weren't played! If you're a fool, it's your own doing!" The instant the words were out of her mouth, Sosa knew they were a mistake. She clamped her lips shut and lifted her chin, her face stained with painful color.

McReady took a moment to control his anger, then he said, tightly, "You just crossed a line, Captain."

"Yes, sir. I apologize."

"Get out of here. I'll decide what to do with you later."

"Yes, sir." She spun on her heel and headed for the door, a tight feeling of panic in her stomach. She didn't break stride or slow down until she was back in the main, utilitarian part of the building. Then she ducked into a Ladies Room and took a moment to collect herself. After she'd splashed cold water on her face, cinched back her hair more tightly, jerked her uniform into place and schooled her expression into stony indifference, she finally braved the corridors again.

Safely back in her own office, she mechanically set about unloading her briefcase and organizing her desk for the morning. All the while, Face's book lay in the middle of her blotter, staring up at her, four familiar figures backlit by the blazing bareness of the Iraqi desert. It taunted her. She wanted to drop everything, fold herself into a chair, and read every word. But she had a job to do, a boss to placate in some way as yet unknown to her, and other concerns than Templeton Peck's seductive words.

She was just tucking the gutted briefcase into its place beside the file cabinet when her cell phone rang. The caller ID was blocked, making her frown, but she thumbed it on anyway.

"This is Sosa."

"Nice job, Captain," a wry voice said in her ear.

"Lynch. You've seen the book."

"I'd hazard a guess that everyone in America has seen the book."

"Have you read it?"

"Not yet. I think this requires a stiff drink and a quiet corner."

"McReady has - or enough of it to work him into a fury."

"The cover alone would work him into a fury. Did he call you on the carpet?" Sosa gave a grunt of assent that made him chuckle. "Accused you of everything from deception to High Treason?"

"Well, he stopped short of Treason. But needless to say, I let my temper get the better of me and said things I shouldn't."

"You always do, where Peck is concerned. It's a serious character flaw."

"Why did you call, Lynch?" she asked with a sigh. "And why congratulate me? I had nothing to do with this. I haven't seen Face in more than two years, not since he went underground with Smith."

"Ah, but you unleashed him on an unsuspecting world, and this literary masterpiece is the result."

"You sound like a more sarcastic version of McCready, now."

"Not at all. My congratulations are genuine. I still believe that Templeton Peck is where he belongs and I'm looking forward to getting a glimpse into his surprisingly fertile brain. Once I have that drink."

"I can never believe half of what you say. You always sound as if you're laughing at something I can't hear. And frankly, I'm not in any shape to deal with it today."

"McReady really upset you?"

"I told you, I shot my mouth off. I could be busted back to Lieutenant before the day is out, or worse."

"He won't bust you. He can't. He'd have to admit that he made a colossal mistake in requesting Peck's pardon, which would make the whole lot of them look ridiculous, from McCready all the way up to the Oval Office."

"He may not try to take on Face and his pardon, but he could bust me for insubordination."

"Not likely. McCready's too savvy an operator to let his anger at you splash back on him. No, I think you're safe. Just put your head down and ride out the storm."

"Keeping my head down is not my strong suit."

"You'll learn. Good luck, Captain. And let me know what you think of the book, once you've read it."

Sosa muttered something in response and cut the line. Sinking into her chair, she pulled the book that had caused all this furor across the blotter to stare at the cover. She shouldn't open it. She knew she shouldn't. But she also knew that she wouldn't be able to think about anything else today, if she didn't. Finally, with an inward sigh, she flipped open the cover.

Turning first to the middle of the tome, she found several thick, glossy pages of photographs. They were what she had expected, for the most part – pictures of the Team together in Iraq, before the Court Martial; portraits of Morrison, Pike and Vance Burris. The pictures from their years as mercenaries she found more intriguing, as this was a part of Face's life she had had no part of. There was nothing from their most recent mission in Iraq except a grainy photo of a handsome, young man identified only as Ahmed. And finally, a photograph with the legend under it: _**The team comes home**_.

Charissa stared and stared at it, her face hard with the effort to conceal the surge of emotion it called up in her. She saw Hannibal, B.A. and Murdock in an airport terminal. Lynch hovered nearly out of frame on one side. And seated in a wheelchair at the center of the group, was a man who could only be Face, though she would never have recognized him without his friends surrounding him.

He was thin and fragile-looking, his cheeks hollow and still marked with traces of bruising. His dark sunglasses did not quite hide the dressing taped over his left eye, and his head was bare, revealing his shockingly short hair. He wore a pair of baggy cargo pants and a T-shirt at least three sizes too big for him, with a peace sign stenciled on it. He looked, in short, totally alien, except for the familiar smile that lingered on his face, drawn from him by whatever Murdock had just murmured in his ear.

Still reeling from the gut-punch of that picture, Charissa flipped back to the beginning and began to read.

 _ **Introduction**_

 _My name is Templeton Peck but everyone calls me Face. Very early in my military career, my C.O. gave me that nickname and it stuck, so hard that now almost no one even remembers that I have another name. Just as no one - including me - really remembers that I had a life before I became a soldier._

 _I've been a soldier as long as I can remember. It's all I know. I've fought battles in Iraq, Afghanistan, North Africa, South America, Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe. I've fought foreign powers, men in uniform, guerilla forces, terrorists, international crime lords, small-town bullies and even my own government. I've fought to serve my country, to protect my friends and to save my own life. I've fought when I was afraid or angry, but usually, when I fight, I feel exhilarated. Because I'm a soldier and fighting is what I do._

 _And that's what this book is about - my life as a soldier. So if you don't want to read about war and warriors, about covert missions, comrades-in-arms, violence and death, close the book now and go find something else to read. But if you do decide to keep reading, there are a few things you should know._

 _First, this book is about_ what I remember _. It isn_ _'_ _t a proper story, since I don_ _'_ _t remember all of it, but what_ _'_ _s here is the truth as I know it._

 _Second, my memory is divided into two parts: Before and After (before and after_ what _you'll find out if you read on). The Before memories are fragmentary and confusing; the After memories are more linear but not very reliable. All of these gaps make the narrative hard to follow in places, and I apologize in advance for that. But if you_ _'_ _re confused, think how I feel! This is the inside of my brain we're talking about!_

 _Third, most of my memories are of three men. They are each, in their own way, brilliant and fearless and good – and more than a little crazy. I owe them my life a hundred times over. They are all I love in this world and all I have left (except for a little, white kitten named Luna, but that_ _'_ _s another story)._

 _This book is about those men. This book is about the A-Team.  
_

 **Finis**


End file.
